


cappuccinos at 8:32

by stardating



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Cherry Picking The Best of Canon, Conspiracies, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Porn, Idiots in Love, Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Pining, Puns & Word Play, Secrets, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, mentions of trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardating/pseuds/stardating
Summary: Tony finds a new coffee shop.Tony also gets a new crush. It is not an obsession Pepper, stop lying.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 35
Kudos: 64





	1. A Hole-In-The-Wall Kind of Place

**Author's Note:**

> I adore coffee shop AUs. I mean, who doesn’t? Kudos to everyone on Discord who gave me trope and cliché ideas! I included as much as I could in this story.
> 
> This completely ran away from me. It was supposed to be cute, sweet, and simple. Maybe deserve to have “autumn” somewhere in the tags. However, that is not what happened. Fix-it ideas and personal head canons is what happened. Tropes, clichés, and storylines from all forms of media is what happened. Oh, there is still plenty of coffee, but yeah, this is no longer a strictly a coffee shop AU anymore, but a mixing of the first Captain America and Iron Man movies too.
> 
> I regret everything and nothing.
> 
> To be honest, this is a monster of a fanfic, going on 30,000 words without author notes and such. I will post up the next chapters when I have finished editing them (there are currently two that are "complete" and a third that is still in the works). But maybe this will convince me to work more on this, as it is a new year's resolution to at least have most of it done and posted up by December, if not completed.
> 
> Final note: the tags about the mentions of trauma and PTSD are cautionary, as there are mentions of such content here and there, but I don’t go into much detail. I get anxious during those kind of scenes myself, so I kept it strictly to the bare minimum needed for the plot. I hardly want to trigger someone else who might be more sensitive to such content than I am.
> 
> And special thanks to everyone on Discord who helped me with this, especially the betas! You guys have been wonderful and thank you so much for all of your help.

Tony ran a hand through his hair and called it a quits.

Slipping his shade over his eyes, he pushed himself away from the meeting table and stood up. Everyone else, all dressed in dark suits like it was someone’s funeral, looked away from the extremely _boring_ presentation. Despite what everyone thought, he knew all about the figures, projections, and estimates. He could predict how some of them would go, with minor adjustments.

“Well, this has been absolutely horrendous, so I’m just gonna leave.”

“Mr. Stark—”

He held up a finger. “Nope. You’re going to get an email from me. So will some other key people throughout the company. Act accordingly.”

As he left the meeting room, he was already texting JARVIS the necessary information and various emails were going to be waiting in his draft folders by the time he got … uh. Somewhere. Anywhere but where he had to listen to someone drone about numbers and he _liked_ numbers. People who could ruin numbers should be outlawed.

He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew he hired smarter people than that. He knew that those people were smarter than that presentation. He trusted them to make good decisions and use their skills wisely, but that meeting did not sit right with him.

“Tony,” Pepper hissed, her heels clicking on the polished tiles of Stark Industries.

“It was a boring meeting and some of their stuff was wrong, Pep,” he complained. “Like, two days outdated and playing towards people’s fears.”

The future was scary, the past was scary, and the present was downright horrifying.

That didn’t mean that they had to let the fear control them.

Pepper rolled her eyes and tapped away at something on her tablet. “Well, this could push up your two o’clock investor meeting.”

He sighed deeply. “Do I have enough time to get some fresh air?”

She looked up and narrowed her eyes. “Since when do you care about fresh air?”

“Pepper, I am offended, wounded. Fresh air is important! Didn’t they come out with a study recently about getting two hours of fresh air improved people’s lives?”

“Actual fresh air, not caffeine,” Pepper corrected. “I know you too well to even entertain the idea that you’re going to actually power walk or do some yoga.”

“Oh, fine,” he groaned, letting his shoulders slump dramatically. “There’s this new coffee place that opened up a block away and I’ve been curious! It’s not a Starbucks! I want to see how much of a chance it has of surviving! I need to know if I should invest my time or not!”

New hole-in-the-wall coffee places were his _refuges_. They were small and out of the way and only locals ever heard of them, or hipsters, but generally, they had awful drinks that he could complain about and random things to look at on their walls. Their employees were also potential subjects to complain about or marvel at how weird humans could be. Same with fellow customers. Most importantly, no one cared who he was. They were all on the same mission: to get coffee, pretend to support local businesses, and choke on their own self-importance.

However, they tended to go belly up and disappear all too quickly. Sometimes, Tony felt relieved because the place _sucked_ , but other times, he mourned the loss and wondered what happened to the people who worked there and owned it. Where did they go?

Pepper sighed, looking up to the sky in despair.

“Fine, go, otherwise you’ll complain for the whole day and get nothing done.”

He grinned—success!—and kissed her cheek.

“Thanks, Pep, I’ll bring you something be back before noon!”

“Noon?!”

He quickly left the building before she could drag him back. It was a quick walk to the place, if he kept his pace brisk to go along with the rest of the crowds, and he could see himself making this trip occasionally, if the place was worth a second visit.

It was located along a row of older buildings repurposed into shops and other places for the public. There were different curtains and knickknacks in the windows of the higher stories, likely apartments of the people who owned the businesses below. For being in the middle of the city, it was kind of quaint.

The scents of coffee and baked goods wafted over him the moment he opened the door. It had the typical architecture of the area: wooden floors, exposed brick walls, and tall, thin windows. Morning sun was already starting to stream in, but by the afternoon, the entire shop would be flooded with golden light.

The wooden floorboards creaked slightly as he walked further in, past mismatched wooden tables and even more mismatched chairs. Though the breakfast rush had died down, there were still a few people seated, working on their laptops or chatting over half-eaten scones. The scent of roasted beans and pastry grew stronger at the counter, where there were croissants and muffins under glass cloches. A coffee roaster was against a wall painted entirely with chalkboard paint. Multiple handwritings made up the menu.

It seemed to have the standard fare, but he had no idea what any of the specials to the right of those were. Just _what_ was a ‘Raging Green Monster’?

He supposed it couldn’t be too horrible, as long as it wasn’t something like a rhubarb latte. That was a mistake Starbucks was never going to make again.

(No, seriously. He was randomly asked to be a part of a tester sample group and he was not the most vocal about his disdain for that drink, among others. He was sure that little old lady made some of the employees weep. She was adamant about expressing her fury towards them for, quote, ‘Ruining one of the most underrated, underappreciated vegetables that should just stay in pies and other forms of baking, not liquid atrocities.’)

“Hey there, welcome in,” someone called from the counter, bright and cheerful. “You just missed the breakfast rush. What can I get you?”

Dear holy—

“Uh.”

Did this guy jump out of a fantasy magazine or something? Was he posing as a cashier for a photoshoot? Because Tony was certain that men built like a Greek statue with a smile like that did not work minimum wage part-time jobs. Seriously, that jawline alone would earn its own Times photo spread. He looked wholesome too, with a short haircut and a simple shirt under his apron that did nothing to disguise his built physique. And those shoulders.

Tony could see Pepper shoving sexual harassment forms and classes at him already. Bad train of thoughts, abort, reboot! Find something appropriate to say!

“What’s a … _Raging Green Monster_?” he asked.

“It’s one of our tea blends,” The Gift From God said. “Green tea is the base, but there’s chamomile and lavender added to it. We usually put in some honey too.”

“So, it’s a joke?”

The guy chuckled, warm and deep, as if the godly physique was not enough. “Most of them are, yeah. Most folks get a kick outta it.”

“Got anything with caffeine in it?”

“Do we,” he replied. “How ‘bout a regular cappuccino?”

“Make it a double shot. And a regular sized latte too?”

“You got it, mister.”

As he worked on the drinks, Tony took the opportunity to look around again. It was quiet; the breakfast rush had really died down, but it was still cozy.

He really hoped this place would do well.

“One latte and double shot cappuccino,” the guy called, setting a cup on the end of the counter.

“Thanks!”

The man gave him a smile, and maybe would have said more, if someone else didn’t come up to the counter right then. Tony gave him a quick wave and headed out.

As he brought the cup up for a sip, he noticed something on the sleeve: a little doodle of a sun and some clouds in permanent marker. The sun had a smiley face on it.

* * *

It was not fair.

That cappuccino was delicious. It was wonderful.

It was absolutely perfect.

He openly made a sound of utter disappointment when he reached the last drop.

* * *

The next time he came into the coffee shop, ‘Tall, Blonde and Gorgeous’ was not at the register. Tony tried to hide his disappointment, but something must have shown, because the redhead behind the counter smirked at him as he came up. She was too gorgeous to be real as well, with flawless skin and wonderful bone structure. Her hair was cut short, but there was enough to display the natural curl in it. He glanced down and saw that her name tag said, ‘Natasha’. Did he miss the other guy’s name tag? At least his eyes were on his face as he thought about inappropriate things that were likely to get him sued.

“Choose your poison,” Natasha said, looking like she knew his darkest secrets and was still going to kill him. Despite her small stature, he was sure she could.

“Cappuccino,” he replied, getting out his card.

Her smirk didn’t fade as she rang it up. “Name?”

“Tony.”

She handed it to him in a to-go cup quicker than he had expected.

“Enjoy.”

“Thanks.”

He sighed as he took a second swig of it outside. It wasn’t the same, for some reason. He knew, logically, that unless she used a different kind of bean, it would taste the same. This cup tasted flatter, like the beans hadn’t been roasted right or there was some sort of artificial flavor. There wasn’t even a cute little doodle, just his name written in an elegant script. Incorrectly.

Clearly, she was the kind of person to troll people.

“You’re not threatening to sue them?” Pepper asked when he complained.

“No,” he admonished. “That was something people only did in the nineties. I’m beyond that.”

“You were threatening to take Apple for all it was worth yesterday.”

“That was Apple! Completely different.”

Pepper gave him a look like she still wasn’t convinced, but she only sighed and handed him some more paperwork to look over and sign. Tony finished drinking the coffee because it would be a waste otherwise.

* * *

This other guy was handsome too.

It was clearly a conspiracy. All of them were models on the run from some horrible, manipulative, abusive fashion house that was involved with the mafia.

‘Bucky’, as the name tag said, had soft looking hair pulled back into a low ponytail and blue-gray eyes Tony was sure people loved to get lost in. That his flirty smile seemed to be more a natural feature than a conscious effort probably helped with those photoshoots. Before the head honchos got in too deep with owing someone a favor and they had to flee their beloved Italy.

“What’ll it be?” Bucky asked, a cup in his hands, ready to go.

“Cappuccino,” Tony said, because hopefully, no one could mess that order up. “Hey, you got the same accent as the other guy!”

“Steve?” he guessed, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah. We grew up in the same neighborhood.”

Yes, he now knew his name. Without having to awkwardly look for a name tag or ask. Smooth, Tony, _smooth_.

“And you two are annoying for it, and so are all your inside jokes,” another guy said, coming out with a tray of muffins. He had wonderfully dark skin and cropped hair, tall and lithe like a runner. This was not _fair_. This amount of beautiful people congregating in one place only happened in the movies. Why was this happening? What was reality anymore?

Bucky smirked and went over to the coffee machine, making Tony’s order. “Just because you don’t get them, doesn’t mean they’re lame.”

“Oh no, I get them, but they’re still lame!”

* * *

“So, what is _The Ghost_?”

“If you can guess correctly, I’ll give it to you for free,” Natasha said as she made some other orders.

Tony was just at the other end of the counter, ducking out of another meeting. He really should buy some coffee, or even one of the in-house donuts, but the puns and lack of descriptions under the specials menu was taking up all of his thought processes. It was an eclectic grouping of names and he was sure that like _Raging Green Monster_ , they were full of trickery and evil.

“Does it have to do with autumn or pumpkins?”

“What is this, twenty questions? Just guess.” She called out some names and handed off the drinks, saying thanks when needed. Especially when someone put money in the tip jar.

“Pumpkin spice latte, but without the spice.”

“Wrong. Your cappuccino will be two-fifty.”

“I didn’t order a cappuccino!” he protested.

She gave him an even look. “Like you ever order anything else.”

Tony sulked all the way back to SI. It still didn’t taste as good as when Steve made it.

* * *

Every time Tony came in, he discovered something new.

It took Steve and Bucky months to renovate the building, but they took the extra time to properly restore the wood floors and other details of the brownstone. Natasha spoke Russian and her favorite people were the little old ladies who were just as scary as she was. Bucky knew Russian too, but he only ever used it to snark in secret with Natasha. Not a single pillow, chair, or mug matched in the whole place because Sam bought everything on clearance.

This time, Tony had an hour or so to kill before his next meeting and he was going to spend it enjoying a coffee that wasn’t to go for once. No, inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Pepper, he was not going to use it to ‘ogle’ at Steve. That would be rude.

Besides, Steve was not someone that could be merely ‘ogled’ at.

Not with how the sun caught in his hair and made it a few shades lighter, like some sort of halo around his head. Or how his eyes lit up and became even bluer when someone said something funny or he recognized a customer. Not when he remembered what was going on in everyone’s lives and genuinely asked about their days. Not when his simple cotton shirts did nothing to hide his amazing arms or how his apron accented his waist just right. He blushed easily, smiled often, and Tony swore that if he could bottle his laugh, he’d be three times as rich.

No, Steve was meant to be appreciated. Savored. Gazed upon.

He wanted to hug him from behind and bury his face in his neck, feel his shoulders under his hands, know what it was like to have his arms around his shoulders …

He took a swallow of coffee and tried to compose himself.

* * *

“Triple shot,” Tony said.

Steve looked up from the to-go cup where he was already writing Tony’s name. “No.”

“No?”

“I am not letting you have that much caffeine at once,” Steve answered.

“Please?” Tony begged.

Steve laughed, shaking his head and made him a regular cappuccino. “You will thank me when you’re not having an afternoon crash.”

* * *

“Want to try something new?” Steve asked one Monday.

Tony considered it for a moment. Steve’s cappuccino was a gift from the gods. Coffee fanatics and experts would weep once they tasted his cappuccino and beg for his secrets, or maybe to personally make them coffee forever. Unlike a lot of other cappuccinos Tony had over the years, Steve’s was just … wonderful. It was robust without being too bitter. The milk was rich, but didn’t disguise the lovely caramel aftertaste. He could drink the stuff forever.

It was hardly a milky, diluted espresso shot like some people claimed.

Trying ‘something new’ could also mean his taste buds would forever be offended. Someone was always creating some new concoction, sure it would take the world by storm, but in reality, it was just some sort of flashy gimmick like any other fad.

But, this was Steve.

“Okay, why not. Surprise me.”

Steve smiled like Tony had just made his day and went behind the counter. Tony watched, but didn’t try to figure anything out. It was just a thing of beauty to see Steve move and work.

“Here you go,” Steve said, bringing Tony back to reality.

“Oh, thanks,” he stammered, lifting it up to taste a sip.

The coffee was good. It wasn’t as bitter as a cappuccino, cut with milk, but it didn’t have any foam like a cappuccino. It was sweeter than a latte, but … the flavor was different than if he had added sugar or simple syrup. Huh. He didn’t see him go for any of the flavorings. Tony took another drink, chasing the flavors, trying to figure out what it was.

“What is it?” he asked at long last.

“Simple and quick,” Steve replied. “Shot of espresso, whole milk, and some demerara sugar.”

“It’s good,” Tony said, taking another drink. “Classic, but not. Never heard of demerara sugar before though.”

“Thanks. It’s a less processed sugar, has more flavor. It’s becoming more popular, but my ma always said she missed it while I was growing up.”

“Yeah? Where was she from?”

“Ireland. My parents moved here before I was born.”

“My mom was from Italy, she could emphasize,” Tony said, memories of his mother bemoaning subpar olive oil or the lack of certain cheeses coming up. Not that it was ever too long of a loss, just sometimes a hassle to find out that one place in that one village didn’t have a phone and begging one cousin or another to make a run and send it through the mail.

He flushed when he saw Steve just … looking at him.

Wistfully. With a tiny little smile.

He coughed and opened his mouth to say something (sue him for not knowing what) when another customer came in and broke the moment.

“Uh, have a good day, Tony.”

“Have a good one, Steve.”

* * *

As he left, he looked down at the coffee sleeve.

Somehow, Steve managed to draw some shooting stars.

* * *

Autumn was coming to the city in full swing.

People were putting pumpkins on their stoops, everyone was going crazy over pumpkin spice lattes, and kids were starting to talk about Halloween costumes. Trees were beginning to turn colors, fog was setting in earlier at night and lingering longer in the morning, and now that the weather wasn’t trying to kill them, a lot more outdoor festivals were getting set up.

Tony was personally excited for the coffee festival and their version of Comic Con, though he really could attend _both_ events if he wanted to. Maybe he could convince Rhodey to come with him and distract Pepper with the Big Chocolate Show. It was worth attempting.

He pushed open the door and smiled. The coffee shop wasn’t immune to autumn either.

On all the tables were small mason jars filled with sunflowers and autumn leaves. They were probably fake, but that was alright. The arrangements added pops of color and cheeriness, but because they were all the same, didn’t add to the chaos that made up the décor already. It was kind of soothing to have something consistent.

“Hey, Tony!” Sam called as he worked on a drink for another customer.

“Hey, Sam!” he called back as he got in line.

Sure, he didn’t get preferential treatment, but this wasn’t some exclusive club. It was … it was the coffee shop. It was a million times better.

For the last few visits, he hadn’t seen Steve at all. He was beginning to wonder if this was a once-in-a-blue moon sort of deal, but since he started coming here about a month ago, the rest of the coffee shop crew was starting to grow on him.

Sam was a cool, mellow kind of guy that made great ‘from scratch’ recipes, until Bucky got on his nerves. Then his snark came out in full force. Natasha still gave him murder vibes, but she thrived under pressure and he was pretty sure she was secretly a geek. She made too many subtle references for her to not be. Bucky was still a jerk, pulling everyone’s pigtails whenever he could. No one knew why he was kept on, but Tony supposed it was because he did occasionally provide decent customer service and excellent coffee.

Sam made his cappuccino. Tony paid and headed to a table over by the windows.

JARVIS reminded him—again—about the hundred emails he needed to answer and send off, but he pushed those away and pulled up his designs for the armor, getting lost in the wiring and programming. He was going to avoid autopilots for the weapons as much as possible, not willing to chance something going off and hurting someone unintentionally because of last second variables. There was too much that could change in the blink of an eye in a battle.

But as he worked, other things filtered into his mind: the way some of his higher ups and heads of departments were a little jumpy; how Obie was behaving since he came back. It was like someone knew something and they weren’t telling him.

He didn’t like that.

He scribbled down a note to look into that and JARVIS filed it away. Perhaps he needed to probe his company a little. Look for new, mysterious servers or emails with certain trigger words or if someone was working odder hours than he was.

Someone was going to slip up.

And when they did, he would be ready for the fallout.

* * *

“Hey! Steve! You got a package!”

Steve came out from the kitchen like a bat out of hell, causing a few people to startle as he rushed over to Sam. Out of his pocket, he drew a small knife and cut the tape.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, like he had won something.

“What’d you yet?” Tony asked as he wandered up, wondering what the heck could have Steve acting like it was Christmas. Seriously, he was jumping up and down, like he could barely contain himself, and his smile had to be hurting his cheeks.

“I ordered some books,” Steve gushed, gently pulling out multiple paperbacks and setting them on the counter. The editions were obviously old and second hand with cracked spines and aged pages, but he treated them like they were made of glass or gold.

Sam laughed, shaking his head as he went to finish wiping down tables. “You and your sci-fi.”

“Hey, these are classics,” Tony defended, spotting H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and the first few volumes of the _Barsoom_ series. Steve was really going back in time. These stories were the foundations of science fiction, the stuff that led to _Star Wars_ and _Lord of the Rings_ and developed the overarching motifs and tropes that defined the whole genre.

Steve smiled at him appreciatively. “I keep telling them that. I’ve got a lot to catch up on, but this is a good start. I’m supposed to be getting some _Amazing Stories_ reprints too.”

“On a sci-fi kick?” Tony asked, smiling.

Was Steve working on just the literature of science fiction? Or was he going through movies and shows too? Loads of people said they knew about movies like _The War of the Worlds_ and _Metropolis_ , but how many actually watched them? Was he an avid _Star Wars_ fan, or did he prefer _Star Trek_? And then was he Team Kirk or Team Picard?

Steve got a wistful look in his eye, just for a moment, before it was tucked away behind more pure excitement. “Kind of. I finally have the money to own my own copies. Now the librarians won’t chase me down for renewing something for the fifth time.”

“Librarians are—”

“Underappreciated and valuable resources that deal with very prejudiced and misogynistic stereotypes,” Steve interrupted.

It was like he had insulted Steve’s mother. Like he had insulted a sacred institution. Tony scrambled to come up with something, _anything_ to assure Steve that he was not going to insult the most important people in the country, no sir. Then, Steve started to crack up.

“What—” Tony gaped.

“Oh, no, they’re demons alright,” Steve laughed.

Forget about Natasha being a troll.

Steve was just a little shit.

* * *

“Rhodey!”

“Tones!”

Rhodey hugged him, slapping his back a few times before pulling away. Tony grinned, happy to see him back from another one of his tours. He had no idea where he had gone, classified and all, but he supposed that he could have JARVIS look him up. You know, just in case anything should happen. Maybe have the armor ready as a backup plan, because things always happened.

No, he was not paranoid.

He just wanted to be able to save his best friend at the drop of a hat, if needed.

“What brings you here?” Tony asked. “You up for some coffee?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “You and coffee. Just marry it already.”

“And cheat on you?” he gasped, clutching at where his heart should be. “Never!”

Rhodey’s eyes darted down to Tony’s chest for a moment, but he quickly covered up whatever he was thinking or feeling. Tony let it slide too. He was only back for a short time, probably. He didn’t want to spend the time moping around or angsting. Brooding? Either way, he wanted to spend his time laughing, sharing jokes, maybe a few rounds at a bar. Watch a horrible movie and making Pepper groan at all the popcorn they threw around the penthouse living room. Buy a Roomba at an ungodly hour, reprogram it, and watch it zoom around better than before.

That was better than what was currently attached to his sternum.

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “You cheat on me with your machines every day. Now, come on, I want a real meal, not motor oil and caffeine.”

* * *

Pepper and Rhodey were the only ones who knew what happened in Afghanistan.

They were the only ones who knew about the armor and Yinsen.

Tony tried to keep it in, keep all of the secrets to himself, and shoulder the entire world alone. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t take it like a man and deal with it. He couldn’t push it down and forget about it or drown it out with alcohol and work. He could barely look at a schematic for those first two weeks, let alone ensure that no one ever touched him again.

One night, when his board of directors were hounding him, when the media was stalking him, and when the whole world just became a buzzing sensation of noise, Rhodey was suddenly on the phone and Pepper was holding him. He was covered in tears and the armor’s helmet on the floor, half taken apart, pieces of the second design scattered all over.

“Don’t feel guilty for surviving,” Pepper begged him. “Don’t. You are _not_ wasting your life.”

“I’ll come and kick you around if you want,” Rhodey said, static marring some of his words. “More than happily, like back when I made sure you actually took your exams. As a matter of fact, you still owe me for that! I’m responsible for all of your degrees!”

That made Tony laugh, a twisted little bit of warmth forming in his chest.

Somewhere near to where his heart was.

So, no one else knew how he survived. No one else knew about the arc reactor in his chest or how he was developing better versions of it _and_ the armor. Pepper and Rhodey worried about him constantly, he knew, but that was nothing new. He did his best to keep on top of everything going on at SI, but … but he knew that it wasn’t sustainable. The plans no one knew about, would never know about, were going to cause some hiccups later on.

But it would be fine.

He couldn’t see that far into the future (there were too many variables), but it would be fine.

* * *

“Huh, this place is nicer than I expected,” Rhodey said, looking around.

Tony huffed, pretending to be offended. “I only come to the best places, you know that.”

Tony could see his eyes going from the random pillows (one had the digits of pi all over it) to the posters and artwork on the wall. The posters were vintage, spanning all sorts of subjects, but the artwork all featured scenes from around New York. He had no idea who made them; they were all unsigned. Rhodey was falling in love with this place too, he just knew it.

Rhodey gave him a look. “Wasn’t there this one place—”

“We swore never to mention it again!”

“Oh, fresh blood,” Natasha purred when they got up to the counter. “Who is this, Tony?”

“You’re on first name basis?” Rhodey asked.

“Like I said, only the best.”

Natasha looked at them expectantly.

“Oh, latte this time. It’s the afternoon. I’ll drink the real stuff when I need to stay up late tomorrow. What do you want, Rhodey?”

She rolled her eyes, but then gave Rhodey a considering look. Not like she wanted to kill him or eat him alive, but more like she was creating a detailed mental dossier on him. “You seem like a caramel macchiato kind of guy.”

Rhodey hummed and looked at the specialty board. “No … I kind of want to know what _The Undercover Agent_ is.”

“Espresso with milk, cinnamon, and honey,” Natasha said. “A friend of mine told me about the drink he had while on a layover in Spain.”

“You made me guess what _The Ghost_ was!” Tony gasped. “I’m still trying to figure it out!”

“You’re still paying, or would you make a friend pay for their own coffee while visiting you?” Natasha asked. She didn’t even bat an eyelash at his worst glare. Rhodey only snickered.

“I hate all of you.”

* * *

They were still chatting when Steve came in, giving Natasha a wave as she headed off for the day. Bucky was due in half an hour and Sam was finished with the last of the day’s baking, and from the sound of the pots and pans in the back, tomorrow’s preparation too. No, he did not know all of their schedules like clockwork. He just figured out some signs of who would come when and when someone was done with their shift based on what they did. It was logical.

He still couldn’t figure out why he didn’t see one or two of them for days at a time.

“Tony?”

He jumped and finally realized Rhodey was trying to get his attention.

“Yes, honeybunch?”

Rhodey gave him an unamused look. “Let me guess. You got a crush.”

“What? I do not! How dare you accuse me—”

“An obsession then?”

Tony slurped the foam of his cappuccino obnoxiously. Rhodey rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Man, Tones, you sure do pick them.”

“What does that mean? Steve is wonderful! You don’t even know the guy.”

“Yeah, but you got a type.”

“What? Blondes?”

“Sure, you could say that is one of the qualifiers.”

The rest of his visit was filled with harassing one another, a lot of eye rolls, Tony avoiding paperwork, Pepper leaving copies of said paperwork all around his apartment, and then stealing Rhodey so they could catch up. Tony grumbled, of course, and muttered when Rhodey threatened to not bring him some dessert or let him have his leftovers from wherever they went.

It was horrible, god awful, inhumane blackmail, but the paperwork got done.

“Thank you, Rhodey, I owe you one,” Pepper said.

“Please, it was a team effort.”

* * *

The line was longer than usual the next visit, but that also might have been because it was a Wednesday? Maybe? Either way, the line was longer and he was running off of four hours of sleep. He prayed to all sorts of deities that nothing went wrong for the next one hundred hours. There were meetings, men in suits breathing down his neck, interns scrambling around for some reason and he was really, really annoyed that some simulations were not working despite hours of troubleshooting.

He wanted the suit to be more than functional. He wanted paperwork to do itself. He wanted Rhodey to not have to go on such long tours all the time or for Pepper to deal with such long meetings. He wanted to be prepared for when he took the armor out. He needed the suit to be absolutely perfect, none of this flying into a heap of sand and waiting for some miracle (Rhodey) to come pick him up. Besides, Tony was sure that he was out of miracles and—

“Are you kidding me?”

The loud complaint startled everyone. Tony inwardly groaned. He prayed to the wrong gods.

“You call this a flat white?”

Sam was behind the counter this time and didn’t bat an eyelash. “I can make it again for you, if you’d like.”

“And have you mess it up again? Hell, no!”

The commotion brought out Steve from the back, who was covered in flour and wiping his hands. Tony briefly wondered if kneading dough gave him those muscles or if he spent his time at the gym when he wasn’t making the best cappuccino in the world.

“What seems to be the problem, sir?”

The man started to rant once more, his choice of words becoming more vulgar. A woman somewhere behind Tony gave a gasp and he knew some kid’s ears were being covered.

“Well, gosh, sir,” Steve said, pouring on the charm and sarcasm all at the same time. “I’m sorry about that. I know Sam here wouldn’t have made a poor quality flat white. It’s his favorite drink! And I know Natasha wouldn’t have roasted our beans incorrectly, that would just mess up everyone’s orders! And I know I wouldn’t train anyone improperly to work in my shop, that’s just bad business. How about we throw in a free muffin and call it even?”

With everyone around him grumbling, and an old woman giving the man a glare, the guy started to look a bit pale.

“Uh. Sure. Whatever.”

Steve smiled, brighter than the sun as always, but Tony saw the sharpness in his eyes. “Great! I hope you like bran, I made them _fresh_ this morning.”

No one liked bran muffins. Tony wasn’t sure why it was even carried.

But the man got a sad looking bran muffin stuffed into a bag along with his apparently poorly made flat white and left.

Sam smiled and patted Steve on the arm. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem.”

It was a few minutes more before Tony made it up to the counter, still exhausted, but probably feeling a lot better than Sam was at the moment.

“Tony,” Sam greeted with a grin. “Hey there.”

“Hey,” he replied. “I want your most complicated, obnoxious drink.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. One cappuccino to go, please.”

“Man, I’m gonna have to charge you extra for that.”

Tony chuckled and grabbed a random bill and shoved it into the tip jar. “You deserve it.”

* * *

A bag was handed to him along with his cappuccino the next day.

“On the house,” Steve said, smiling. “Or more like, please try the croissants I made and let me know if they suck.”

“Making me an unofficial taste tester, huh?” Tony asked, grinning. “You’re lucky I haven’t had breakfast.”

Steve’s smile widened and became brighter. “Well, as long as they don’t go to waste.”

Tony could hardly wait until he got out the door before he tore off a piece of the croissant. It was flaky, buttery, and there was a crunch when he first bit in, before getting to the billowy, soft layers. He had some crumbs all over his beard and shirt now, but it wasn’t like he was losing the entire thing to the ground. These were fresh with no time to soften because of refrigeration. He chased the croissant down with his cappuccino and yeah, he was in heaven.

Parisian pastry chefs couldn’t hold a candle to this and he had croissants from Paris.

When he was finished with it, he mourned his loss. _Mourned_.

Next time, he was ordering two dozen. No, three dozen, because Pepper deserved some too.

* * *

Something told Tony that winter this year would be a bitter one. Frost was still lingering on the windows despite the morning sun and some people were worrying over storms and winds affecting winter festivals and events. The autumn events were a hit like always. Rhodey wasn’t able to go to the Comic Con, but Pepper thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate festival and all it had to offer. Sadly, Tony was steered out of the coffee festival after one hour. He did have to admit, it was probably for the best. Coffee beans boasting three times the amount of caffeine wouldn’t be good for anyone’s heart, no matter the condition.

Now, he kind of wanted to bunker down in the workshop for the winter. Three months of non-stop inventing and designing. It would be glorious. He would be like a reverse Santa Claus, except he actually brought joy to the world through technology instead of just toys. Or was that what the elves did the rest of the year?

But that meant he wouldn’t get to see Steve as much.

He was coming every day now, sometimes twice, and he wasn’t sure how pathetic or obvious he was getting with his crush. He was sure that Bucky, Sam, and Natasha were more than aware, but what about Steve? Was he being kind, ignoring it to spare Tony any hurt feelings? Was he unaware? He never saw anyone else flirt with him, but he could have someone somewhere. It wasn’t like he and Steve were the best of friends, knowing every detail about each other’s lives.

He kind of wanted that, though.

It would … it would be nice to get to know Steve better, outside of the coffee shop. See movies, have takeout, wander around and people watch. Find out what he did when he wasn’t being a geek over classic sci-fi or running a coffee shop. Learn what inside jokes he and Bucky had, hear more stories about his other friends and family. He wanted to be able to share all those things with Steve too. See where they differed or didn’t mesh well or how well they could get along.

“I’m sure you’ll love it,” Natasha said pleasantly to a young mother who was getting hot chocolate for her children in front of him. From what Tony half overheard, one of them was allergic to milk and didn’t seem to like almond milk that much. Luckily, the coffee shop stocked plenty of alternatives for people to choose from, but the girl still seemed a bit sullen.

“Thank you,” the young woman said, leaving a tip in the jar.

“Another cappuccino, Tony?” Natasha asked.

Tony considered it for a moment.

“Actually, let me have what she’s having.”

Natasha quirked an eyebrow, but made him the hot chocolate anyways.

The little girl gasped, clutching her to-go mug with star-struck eyes. “You like hot chocolate, Mr. Stark?”

“It’s the best,” Tony replied with a wink. “You got good taste, kid.”

* * *

“I want to build them a toaster.”

“ _No_ , Tony.”

“But it would be amazing! I could program it to—”

“You would make it an AI!”

“Brilliant,” Tony gasped. “That is why I am gonna make you CEO, Pep, you come up with the best ideas. You can talk to the toaster, take the guesswork out of all the buttons and everything. It can tell you when it needs its crumb catchers cleaned, rather than smoke filling—”

“Tony,” Pepper sighed. “You are _not_ building the coffee shop a sentient toaster. They don’t even use a toaster that much.”

“But!”

“No!”

* * *

“I’m sure he’s gonna want another cappuccino,” Bucky said.

“I’m not sure what makes you doubt me,” Natasha replied.

“I’m not sure what makes you doubt _me_.”

Natasha glared. “I’m sure one of the rules is _no_ repeating.”

“I’m not sure we ever laid any rules,” Bucky quipped, absolutely smug.

Steve was on break, sitting across from Tony at a small table towards the back. When Steve asked if he could join him, so he wouldn’t be taking away a table from a customer, Tony just about had an aneurysm. It was one thing to be separated by the counter and register, or to be a discreet dozen feet away with a cup of coffee, but this close? This kind of proximity?

It was too much. There was literally four inches of table separating their hands. He could see the curve of his eyelashes, the quirk of his lips. God, he could really notice the _color of his eyes_. This close, he could see the dark blue around the very edges of his irises and the tiny flecks of green in his left eye. He could see the way his hair was getting a little long, long enough that Tony wanted to brush back the strands that were falling across his forehead.

He also saw that Steve had a mole on one cheek, right near the center of it, but on the other side, another mole was closer to his jaw. There were some more on his neck, following the lines of his throat. God, Tony wanted to—

“I’m sure y’all are idiots,” Sam exclaimed.

Sam’s declaration caused some other customers to laugh, snapping Tony from his thoughts.

“Am I that predictable?” Tony asked, purposefully pouting. “I mean, I’ve had your cappuccinos. The other day I had a hot chocolate. That had no caffeine whatsoever!”

Oh, wow. How was he even breathing right now? How was he even forming words without stuttering? Someone must be smiling down upon him today.

Steve gave an uncommitted reply, flipping to another page of his book. The red letters of _The Warlord of Mars_ were now faded, but the rest of the cover was very telling: a large golden throne looming in the background and shadowed hands holding up swords, spears, and daggers. He was more than halfway through it and Tony bet Steve spent every spare minute devouring another sentence, too excited to put it down for very long.

“Are you going to go to Mars someday?” Tony asked, wondering if Steve was ignoring everyone or just that absorbed in the story.

“I’m waiting for NASA’s reply to my application,” Steve deadpanned.

Tony rolled his eyes, scoffing, and went back to his suit designs, while secretly enjoying Steve’s reply. Eventually, someone was going to kill Bucky. He needed to have plausible deniability when the cops showed up and asked anyone if they had seen what happened.

* * *

Steve’s break was much too long and way too short.

Tony didn’t think his heart was ever going to stop racing.

* * *

“So you’re the one who keeps the plants alive,” Tony said, when he saw Natasha move along the various pothos ivies that grew in pots arranged on the windowsills, watering can in her hand.

“I am capable of many things,” she quipped back. “Those idiots are lucky to know how to roast and bake.”

“I thought you did all the roasting.”

She smiled, just a quirk of the corner of her mouth. “Then it looks like I single-handedly keep this place afloat.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, that sounds more realistic.”

“Make sure to buy a muffin,” she commanded. “Steve says you don’t eat enough. I’m getting tired of him worrying about you.”

Tony was very, very proud that he asked her about which of Sam’s muffins were the best, instead of focusing on why Steve was worrying about him and how often he voiced his concerns that Natasha started to get annoyed by it.

He saved that for later, when he was safe in his workshop again.

* * *

Tony had no idea what day it was. Screw time too. It was all relevant anyways, a human construct to organize and make sense of their universe.

All he knew was that he _needed_ a cappuccino and that the coffee shop was the quickest way to get anything decent, because so help him god, he was going to fire whoever ordered the swill that was in the breakroom at SI. That stuff was horrible. Why that person was not dead yet, he had no idea, because his employees deserved better than that. Replacing all of the coffee was going onto his to-do list, right after revolutionizing green energy and—

“Cappuccino, please,” he begged when it was his turn in line.

“Sure thing, Stark,” Bucky smirked, as if he was laughing at his desperation.

But it was the use of his last name that threw him off guard.

“What—how?”

Sure, he knew he was famous. He knew that people recognized him instantly for one reason or another, but in the weeks that he had been coming here, no one treated him like some celebrity. No one stopped him for an autograph or tried to shove their latest creation at him or beg him for a job. Heck, no one even made a joke about him not leaving a good tip. Not that he didn’t, because in this economy and with the horrible wages everyone was being paid, he had to help out somehow. A ten or a twenty here and there really wasn’t going to hurt _his_ bank.

But he thought that no one knew him here. He thought that he was finally a member of the nameless masses, only recognized because of shared jokes and repeat visits. Was it too much to ask that he was just ‘Tony’ instead of the largest technological corporation ever?

Bucky undid the cuff of his sleeve and rolled it up so Tony could see where skin ended and metal began, running all the way up to his shoulder. After a second or two, Bucky pushed his sleeve back down and no one was the wiser.

“I remember that design,” Tony said quietly. “I remember working on it.”

He personally created the alloy and redesigned the joints from scratch, pioneering the nerve ending calibrations. He also worked on the skin sleeves, so they were more resistant to wear and tear, but didn’t interfere with those improved nerve calibrations.

“Yeah,” Bucky said softly. “It’s great. It doesn’t hurt like other designs did.”

Tony got a warm feeling inside his chest. He had donated the designs to anyone who could make them and gave a lot of money to some veteran hospitals so people like Bucky could be helped directly, without worrying about doctor visits or therapy bills. He wasn’t sure how many soldiers his efforts had helped, but he was glad to see at least one person benefitted from it all.

“Well, if you ever need a maintenance, or tune up, you know where to find me.”

* * *

Of the few people Tony absolutely trusted with every fiber of his being, Bruce had to be the one he connected to with the most. He adored Rhodey; there was no doubt about that. He adored Pepper just as much. How or why those two stuck with him through bad decisions, drunken parties, his years at MIT, or the horror that was the desert, he had no idea. He would never, ever underappreciate them or be ungrateful for their loyalty and friendship.

But Bruce knew what long nights at the lab were. He understood technical jargon and the bitter defeat of projects that needed to be scrapped. He knew the dangers and consequences of working with anything that required some risk taking, beyond board members changing their minds or terrorists wanting to use his genius for one horrible reason or another.

(Rhodey got the award for risk taking, though. He was out there, every day, doing his best to be more than just another cog in the military machine. Every time that Rhodey was able to come back, whole and alive, Tony was supremely grateful.)

‘Science Bro’ was a mere title for the deeper connection that they had.

Bruce’s little green quirk just added another layer to it.

“Oh, I’ve been here before,” Bruce said as they walked inside the coffee shop. Tony was proud twofold: he finally got the hermit to come out of his mountain cave and the hermit came out on his own occasionally. “I like their teas. They have a nice selection without being pretentious.”

“Tea can be pretentious?” Tony asked in disbelief. Aunt Peggy taught him that there was good tea and bad tea, mostly depending upon how someone made it, but tea was never _pretentious_. It was the lifeblood for millions of people. It was the drink you drunk when you wanted to take over the world or be a really classy super villain. “How?”

“When you advertise that you have the first and only flush of a certain tea grown only on a certain mountain in China made a certain, special, secret way, but it turns out to taste just like PG Tips? That is when it becomes pretentious.”

Tony cocked his head to the side. “Huh. I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Bruce gave him a look. “Monks don’t give away their tea blends to American corporations. It would take away the reason why they make the blends in the first place.”

“And what’s that? It’s a form of meditation? Spiritual practice?”

Bruce shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s a secret too.”

Bucky was at the counter again today. He gave him a smile and eyed Bruce a little critically. Bruce was kind of in a disarrayed, rumpled form today, thanks to a science binge that Tony was not responsible for. Just because he could lose himself in engineering and machinery did not mean that other scientists weren’t capable of getting lost in their own fields as well. Hence him proudly proclaiming to Pepper how _he_ got _Bruce_ to come out and get some fresh air.

“Hey, what can I get you guys?”

“Cappuccino and …” Tony trailed off.

“ _Raging Green Monster_ , please,” Bruce added. “Think Pepper would like something?”

Tony nodded. “Add a mocha to go.”

“Sure thing. So, why do you look like you two just rolled out of bed? Or, in Tony’s case, out from under a car?”

Bruce glanced at Tony while Tony rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Bruce here is one of the foremost experts of gamma radiation, biochemistry, and nuclear physics! He’s a genius! Have some respect!”

“That doesn’t explain you,” Bucky quipped, giving him a shit-eating grin.

“Tony likes cars,” Bruce explained. “And he’s a slob.”

“Hey!”

* * *

Some people wondered how much of a Captain America fan Tony was.

Some people were correct in assuming that he couldn’t ever reach the levels his father’s obsession went. Those people had no idea how right they were. When it came to Captain America, Howard not only collected and held onto everything he could find—including anything that might have belonged to Steve Rogers—but he kept tabs on everything too.

If someone was searching for Captain America, Howard likely funded it.

If someone was trying to recreate the serum, even if they were in the middle of Siberia and had no connection to the outside world, not even wi-fi, Howard knew about it.

Tony, on the other hand, made sure to only keep informed of the matters. He kind of got the ‘hands off you’ll never amount to anything like him’ message early on. But when word got around that someone was messing around with vita radiation and had poked into some old archives that were still supposed to be classified? Well. That was different.

He wasn’t able to stop the accident.

He wasn’t able to stop Abomination.

But as soon as everything stopped getting thrown around and the dust settled, Tony swooped in and convinced Bruce to stay where Ross couldn’t touch him.

Scientist to scientist.

Human being to human being.

He made sure Betty had Bruce’s number. He vowed that no one would use Bruce again.

* * *

“Fine, I’ll come,” Pepper sighed, still plugging away at her phone. Probably answering emails, facilitating meetings, and basically keeping the company from bursting into flames.

Tony inwardly cheered, because who didn’t like coffee breaks? He was pretty sure that Pepper had not gone to the coffee shop yet, so he was extra excited. Unlike Bruce, she was absolutely unspoiled. He could witness a pure first impression. It was going to be like seeing a little kid watch _Star Wars_ and finding out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father.

“You are going to _love_ it,” he gushed. “But beware, if Natasha gives you murder vibes, it’s because she’s secretly a spy, not because she actually wants to kill you.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “You’re not the only one raving about that place, Tony. I’ve had at least two dozen other employees sing its praises.”

“I must be missing them.” He didn’t see any employees when he went in, but it could be that he just went in before or after them, or maybe he was just too focused on Steve.

The walk there, though fairly quick, took a little too long. It was like they hit every single crosswalk.

“Tony, all pedestrians hit every single crosswalk.”

“So?”

She gave no reply, just continued to walk a ‘don’t kill yourself trying to get there first’ pace.

The walk was still too long and by the time they got to the coffee shop, Tony felt like he was about to burst out of his skin. He _loved_ this place. It was more than the drinks—the drinks could be garbage sludge for all he cared, but he was beginning to think of Steve and the rest of them as regulars in his life, if not friends. He had no idea what they thought of him, but they had yet to ban him from the premises or give any signs that their friendly attitudes towards him were anything but genuine. That had to be a good thing, right?

Pepper put her phone away when they entered and looked around. She hid it rather well, but he could tell that she was surprised. It was hardly a Starbucks. But then, a little smile came over her face and he saw the tension in her shoulders ease just a little bit.

Kind of like what happened every time he came in.

“It looks lovely.”

“Told you this place is great. Oh, what is that?” Tony asked.

Pepper glanced over at the cake sitting on a stand, obviously fresh from the oven. “It looks like apple cake if you ask me.”

“I want fifty of those.”

“Tony! I don’t think they can make fifty!”

“I could ask if they cater,” Tony said. “I’m a regular. I bet if I begged enough, they would, just to get me to shut up.”

“Oh, god.”

“Come on, Pep, at least one. We could split it.”

Pepper looked at the apple cake, all warm and fresh, with a critical eye. Tony knew that she occasionally liked sweet stuff, and while many people assumed she preferred the more elegant and fanciful desserts, _he_ knew that as long as it was well made, she didn’t care about its pedigree.

Tony also knew that sometimes, Pepper denied herself a little bit too much. She worked three time as hard as anyone, put out so many more trash fires than imaginable, and hardly got the credit or recognition that she would have gotten if she were male.

She at least deserved some apple cake.

“Fine.”

Tony quickly sprinted up to the counter, lest someone try to steal it from him.

“Hey, Natasha, is that cake for sale?”

“Nothing is for sale, Tony,” she quipped. “This place runs on air.”

“Ha, ha,” he deadpanned. “But seriously, if you’re not going to divide it up, I’ll happily buy the whole thing.”

“That will be thirty dollars.”

“Done.”

* * *

Later that day, after a few hours of horribly boring board meetings, Tony finally got a moment to himself. He wasted no time grabbing a fork from a random break room and heading back to his lab where the apple cake was waiting for him. There was still some odd behaviors in his head of departments and some variables that stuck out in some reports, but he could pick those apart later. Maybe he could do that instead of fighting off nightmares tonight.

He opened the plastic container and the scent of apples and cinnamon wafted up. It was still a little warm, the thin drizzle not even hardening yet. As he stuck his fork in, the piece of the cake came off easily without crumbling. Further into it, he saw real apple slices in there.

Putting the morsel into his mouth was even better than looking or smelling. It was moist, not too sweet, and hardly cloying like some store-bought versions could be. It had to be the brown sugar he could get a hint of and the crunch of the walnuts. Spices melted over his tongue, most notably cinnamon. He couldn’t describe the cake as anything but made with love.

He went for another forkful when he saw a note taped on the lid:

 _Got stuck baking! Hope you like it!_  
_—Steve_

His heart skipped a beat.

Oh, he was doomed.

* * *

“Rhodey,” he began.

“It’s … I don’t even wanna _look_ at a clock, Tones.”

“I know, I know but—”

“Having an internal crisis about Steve?” Rhodey interrupted.

“How do you know?” Tony exclaimed, aghast.

He could hear the smirk in Rhodey’s voice. “I have my ways.”

“Pepper is a little snitch.”

“Actually, Bruce is the group’s gossip.”

“Not Brucie Bear! Not my Science Bro!”

How the hell did Bruce find out about his crush on Steve anyways? Sure, he knew Bruce went to the coffee shop without him, he didn’t have the man on a leash, but he was only with Tony _that one time_. Unless he passed by Bruce without seeing him? Was he that oblivious whenever Steve came into the room? Did the others talk about him when he wasn’t there? Was Bruce psychic?

And he could have sworn Rhodey forgot about this! It was just a crush!

An annoying voice commented that it wouldn’t be ‘just a crush’ if he was calling Rhodey in the middle of the night about it.

Rhodey snorted, interrupting his thoughts. “Look, Tones. Let’s keep this short and simple: feelings of attraction are natural. People have them all the time. It’s totally normal to find yourself attracted to someone cute and funny. You don’t have to let it get to your head.”

“Yeah, but what if it’s something a little more?”

“Like what?”

“He leaves _doodles_ , Rhodes. He bakes. He’s … he gets these little twinkles in his eyes when I make him laugh. Other people make my coffee and it doesn’t taste the same.”

“So flirt back. Stop having a crisis. Ask him out.”

“You say that as if it were easy.”

“Knowing you, you’re going to think too much about it and make it complicated. Just don’t blow something up.”

“I make no promises.”

“Why is this my life?”

* * *

Tony considered it. Really considered it.

There is definitely attraction on his part. If he asked, there is a high probability that Steve would say yes. It would be fun. They’d do something simple, like get ice cream and walk around a park, enjoy the good weather and each other’s company. He seems like the kind of guy who would appreciate something simple and old fashioned, not flashy cars and fancy dinners.

Even if he said no thanks, it’s not like there isn’t the hint of a friendship there. It might be a little awkward, but he could see himself shoving that attraction down so he could continue to snark and chat with Steve and the rest of the crew. Going to the coffee shop and enjoying their company, as he acknowledged before, had become a big part of his life. There would be a horrible, mangled hole in his heart if he screwed this up and lost _all_ of them.

He sighed and wiped his hands on a dirty rag, the motor oil and grease smearing more.

A relationship between Steve and himself would be something. He could see it, the possibilities.

But the suit’s power was finally online and he was now working out the last remaining kinks. He was developing a more streamlined armor design and thinking of what he might need in emergencies, beyond flight capabilities and thermal imaging. He was going to need a self-contained air system, emergency release valves, and … and …

“JARVIS, pull up those schematics again. The ones for the thruster boots.”

Maybe he could reduce the power needed for those guys, redirect it to other areas, like an underwater life support system and if he’s going to really be flying, he needs to make sure that it can withstand the temperatures up there …

That is something he will have to figure out.

Could he get rejected by Steve without losing him and the others?

Could he balance what he needed to do while dating someone?

Was there a way to have his cake and eat it too?

A nasty part of him whispered ‘no’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little personal, but I just wanted to write it out and put my thoughts/feelings into words, because this was something I did very deliberately:
> 
> It’s always been my head canon that Steve was a bit of a bookworm and especially loved science fiction. The foundations of what we know as science fiction really took off in the 20s and 30s, so I think it’s completely fitting that he would have read a lot of the titles I mentioned. When he was sick in bed, there might not have been much else for him to do besides draw of course, but art supplies cost money. Pulp fiction, on the other hand, was wide-spread and cheap.
> 
> Growing up, I had the fortune to have a dad who was really into science fiction and who loved to share these books, movies, and shows with me. I have a lot of good memories with him because of that and there will be more of these memories featured in this story. My dad has been gone for a while now, but the books mentioned in this chapter are the ones I distinctly remember him loving the most. A bit of a tribute to him, if you will, as he helped me find reprints of the Captain America comics before he passed, simply because I loved Captain America.
> 
> Since reading some of the earlier comics, I have found out this is actually canon. You can imagine my absolute delight!


	2. It's One Of Those Crush-Like Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for all of your comments and kudos on the last chapter! I'm so glad you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoy this one too! Keep safe and healthy out there!

It was the afternoon and Tony was back for a second visit to the coffee shop. Steve came out from behind the counter, wearing a leather jacket, keys in hand, just as Tony stepped inside. He must have had an afternoon shift, because Tony didn’t see him that morning.

“Oh, Tony! Hey!”

“Hey,” Tony called back, hoping his voice didn’t sound _too_ strangled. The way Steve’s shoulders filled out that leather jacket, how it tapered down with his hips, was downright sinful. It was another Classic All-American Look and Steve just pulled it off effortlessly.

“Sorry, I just got off for the day,” Steve said, all apologetic. “But it’s good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too. Have a good day!”

He watched him leave and a part of his brain hoped he wasn’t too obvious.

Sam and Bucky were giving him identical looks when he finally turned around, after the door had closed and Steve was no longer in view. He probably had a neon sign above his head.

“Well?” Bucky asked.

“Well what?” Tony griped.

Sam smacked Bucky’s arm, not seeming to care that it was the metal one. “Quit it, you idiot!”

“Quit what? I didn’t say anything!”

Sam shot Tony a pitying look. “Ignore this idiot, okay?”

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. “Like I ever do anything else?”

* * *

“You’re opened late.”

Steve—oh thank god, he finally caught up with him again—stopped wiping down a table near the front for a moment, lemon-scented cleaner mixing in with the coffee.

“Yeah?” Steve asked. Tony realized then that his tone sounded like he thought this was a crime. “It’s good for business. You wouldn’t imagine the desperate university students that’re in this area.”

Tony shook his head, grinning. “Consider me a desperate university student.”

“Oh,” Steve said, a hint of a blush rising. “Well, glad you approve. Still want a cappuccino, or do you want to try something without caffeine?”

“No, I need to pull an all-nighter. Hit me with your best shot.”

Steve snorted, amused, and went to make the drink. Tony paid and went to his usual table, pulling out his tablet. He had schematics to work on and this was perfect. Absolutely perfect. No one else was in, the streets were quiet, and Steve must have been the one who changed the music to smooth jazz instead of the usual top hits or whatever kids listened to these days. Sure, he preferred to blast out AC/DC, but this was good too. Something different.

The last three days had been awful.

Just … awful.

As much as he tried not to think about it, the attack during his Jericho demonstration and kidnapping was suspicious. How did someone know to attack _right then_? How did those people know he would be there? Even if it was just a coincidence, Tony had been kidnapped enough times to know that there were no such things as coincidences. Someone planned this. Someone leaked information about the test site and security measures and exploited it all.

He swallowed back a sour taste in his mouth and refocused on the facts. If someone had leaked that information, they had to be in SI. They had to have enough clearance—or hacking skills that surpassed his own—to orchestrate the attack. But there was also the motive to consider. Revenge for battles that included his weapons? Corporate sabotage? Did he manage to piss off someone who could really hold a grudge and who decided that this was a good form of revenge?

The thoughts surrounding all this had consumed him for three days, causing him to reschedule meetings, post pone some development projects, and basically cause headaches for everyone around him. Even JARVIS seemed to be a bit annoyed, even though he understood that sometimes Tony had to act like a hermit to get his head back on straight again.

God, he really hoped he could get to the bottom of this. He wanted to keep his promise to Yinsen and end this nightmare.

A few moments later, Steve came by and dropped off his coffee.

“Good luck with your work,” he said politely, without attempting to take a peek at what he was doing, like he knew it was rude or was a paranoid pet peeve of his.

Tony looked up and really, really hoped that his smile conveyed everything he _wished_ he could put into words. “Thank you.”

“Architect?” Steve asked, coming over with a regular cup of coffee.

Tony hadn’t even noticed he finished the first cup, but … yeah. Two hours had gone by. He had gotten a lot done, which was nice, but wow. Time flew right past him. Those were two hours he was never getting back, and looking over his work, he wasn’t sure if they were spent well.

He set down his stylus and took the cup, taking a moment to breathe in the warm steam, eyes closing in bliss for a moment. No offense to Natasha, but whatever Steve did when he made coffee was magic. No one could replicate it.

“Engineer. With some serious deadlines, like I have nothing better to do.”

He understood that deadlines and profitable projects were what kept his corporate shareholders happy, but sometimes, it felt like he was still pulled into too many directions. SI was a monstrosity that relied on so many different parts fitting together perfectly, but when most of those parts were human beings with concerns beyond their jobs …

He had a right to grumble a bit too.

“That’s amazing,” Steve replied, his smile growing. “I’ve always liked the concept of engineering. It’s like art being given a practical application.”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat again. It wasn’t because of the caffeine.

“It’s not like fine art doesn’t have a role in society,” Tony said. “I mean, I don’t get a lot of it, but there’s whole sections for it in bookstores for a reason, right? Some theory about humans and a need to create or express themselves?”

“Something like that.”

The conversation tapered off afterwards when some students came in, looking haggard and laden down with textbooks, laptops, and essays. Two promptly began arguing about the best way to move forward with a project, while another looked frustrated over what looked to be history or a literature course. The amount of books they had was criminal. For the next half hour or so, no one else came in. Business seemed to be slow, so it made sense that Steve was alone.

That meant Tony got to witness something he didn’t often get a chance to see: Steve interacting with others that weren’t his friends. When the students ordered their drinks, he was warm and professional as always. But then the two arguing got a piece of cake silently slid between them. It seemed to mollify them enough to come to some sort of compromise and lower their voices. The other, who was definitely working on a World War II essay got some water and a short list of books Steve wrote down on a napkin. They looked like they were about to cry with relief and after Steve wished them luck, attacked their assignment with renewed determination.

Steve checked on him once more before Tony noticed the time. It was getting towards closing time for the coffee shop, which was already late for general business hours.

“See you in about … seven hours?” Steve teased when he went over to say goodbye.

“I got nothing better to do in the mornings,” he replied.

Tony wished that he could kiss Steve goodnight too.

* * *

“This is new,” Tony commented, pausing to look at a framed charcoal sketch.

It was a lovely rendering of a nearby park, people milling about and the trees full of leaves. Nothing was defined or overly exact; the shading was kind of messy, but it gave the scene more dimension that way. Not quite _chiaroscuro_ … but nice. He liked it. It was intimate, quiet.

Bucky continued wiping down a nearby table. “Yeah. Steve drew it.”

“He did?”

“He was an art student before he joined the Army. Been drawing since we were kids.”

Tony bit back asking why Steve stopped. Who said he stopped? Maybe he was taking some time off to run a business and make money before continuing lessons. Maybe he decided to do this instead and keep art as a hobby. Maybe something else happened. There was a lot that Tony didn’t know about Steve—about all of them. It kind of made him jealous, but he could hardly fault Bucky or anyone else. He just met Steve and their interactions were limited.

Of course other people would know him better.

Now if only he could get the stupid voices in his head to be as logical.

“Anything else of his hanging up?” he asked.

Bucky started laughing. “You haven’t noticed? And they call you a genius. They’re _all_ by Steve.”

Tony looked around the café with new eyes.

Everything? The watercolor of the Brooklyn Bridge? The oil painting of Central Park in the winter? The other sketches and acrylics? The one superbly awful abstract that seemed to want to be a Pollock but missed the mark by a mile?

He must have looked around for a long while, because Bucky had that smug look on his face that only spelled trouble for him in the future.

“Shut up,” he said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but you’re going to.”

“I would never,” Bucky said, his outrage completely mocking.

* * *

When word reached him that SHIELD found Captain America, Tony was at a loss of what to do.

It was just an accident when they found him. They weren’t even looking.

Howard was probably rolling in his grave now.

In the end, Tony decided to stay away. How could he meet someone he admired and resented at the same time? How could he not say something that would get him punched? Or possibly escorted out of the not-so-secret building they had their meetings?

Yeah.

It was better to just stay away and let Captain America get used to the idea that everything he knew was gone. The son of an old war buddy wasn’t going to help much.

* * *

“You remind me of the babe,” Natasha said with a smirk as she walked past his table.

Tony snorted and continued to plug away at numbers for expense reports and other business aspects of the company apparently no one else could do (Pepper confirmed this three times and highlighted what he needed to sign or veto). He knew where this was going. “What babe?”

“Oh, you’re not doing that again, are you?” Sam groaned.

“The babe with the power.”

“What power?” Bucky called.

“The power of voo-doo,” Tony continued.

“Who do?” Natasha asked, morphing her expression into total confusion.

“You do.” Bucky snickered.

“Do what?” Steve asked, coming out with a load of cookies and muffins.

“Remind me of the babe,” Tony said before he could stop himself.

Steve blinked at him before his face started turning a bit red.

Bucky and Natasha were silently laughing—he could see the glee in their eyes—while Sam was covering his face and attempting to hold back a groan. Tony sympathized. He wanted to groan too and then for the floor to swallow him up.

“Oh, that thing?” Steve laughed, putting the cookies in their appropriate places. “Does that mean you want to watch it again, Tasha?”

“Sure, it’s my turn for movie night anyways.”

* * *

“Clint!”

Tony looked up from the contracts he was looking over (and having JARVIS double check in case he read something wrong) to see a shorter man with blonde hair come into the coffee shop. Steve came from behind the counter and gave him a fist bump. He did that from time to time with random people, but they all seemed to have the same look about them. Tony figured they were either old friends or they were in the Army with him, Bucky, or Sam.

“How’s it going?” Steve asked.

The man—obviously Clint—grinned in response. “Oh, the usual, living off pizza. Is Nat in?”

“No, she’s off today,” he replied.

“You’re stuck with Barnes?”

Steve snorted. “We’re joined at the hip, as always.”

“Eew. You two are so gross. I pity you.”

Tony smiled to himself behind his mug of coffee. From time to time, Steve and Bucky got teased about how close they were, but Tony knew it wasn’t anything more than friendship. Those two were like brothers. He got little bits and pieces over the weeks, but figured out that times were hard growing up, in school, and when they did their tours in the Army.

The mission where Bucky lost his arm, which he was _not_ going to pry about, was the worst. Steve admitted he went a little AWOL, but didn’t regret it.

Steve and Clint caught up a bit more before Clint’s phone pinged. Then pinged three more times.

“Great, the old ball and chain,” Clint muttered.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t refer to your superiors like that.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “As if you never did!”

“Well, I never got _caught_. You got nothing on me.”

“One day, man, people are gonna see you’re no shining, golden boy. Just you wait.”

Steve only grinned. “That’ll be the day.”

* * *

Tony yawned hard, eyes tearing up from the force of it.

He had lost track of how many hours he had been awake and did _not_ want to ask JARVIS. He was sure that the machine would frown at the number of projects he had added onto his impossibly long to-do list and all the coffee he guzzled. Not that it was Steve’s coffee. He hadn’t left the workshop in about three days and yikes. That explained that weird smell.

Sadly, a shower only woke him up so much. He really needed food and more coffee. Something to distract him from the ideas running around in his head, or at least, a better filing system. He hated it when his mind decided to work against him.

Before he knew it, he was somehow dressed and already in front of the coffee shop. Someone like him should be sick of the scent of coffee, tired of seeing the same place nearly every day, but Tony found himself drawn to the shop. It was cozy. It felt like home. He knew that he was welcomed and known here, despite his last name. He knew the floorboards, for god’s sake.

It must have been impossibly early, because Steve was grinding a fresh batch of beans. Music was playing already, but it wasn’t coming from the speakers subtly hidden around the ceiling.

There was a subtle beat to tap to, a hint of piano keys, and then Frank Sinatra started singing _Fly Me To The Moon_. There was a little crackle in the air, barely audible. A vinyl record was playing somewhere.

Then _Steve_ started singing.

His voice didn’t go as deep as Sinatra’s did; it had a higher, airier quality. Almost a tenor, if his general speaking voice wasn’t as deep and rich as it was. The coffee grinder, as loud as it was, didn’t seem to drown out his voice at all. Or maybe Tony was just really listening.

He was glad there wasn’t a bell on the door to signal when someone walked in. He was able to just stand in the doorway and listen. For a moment, he felt that he was intruding on something personal and private, but he reasoned that he wouldn’t tell anyone. It would be a secret he would keep all to himself, something for him to hold onto in the middle of the night.

The horns and trumpets swelled, taking over, and Steve looked up then. “H-Hey,” he stammered, starting to blush hard.

“Morning,” Tony greeted, like he had only arrived there a second before. Really, he was savoring the difference between his singing voice and his speaking voice, committing the whole thing to memory and wishing JARVIS was able to record it. He seemed to have a knack for knowing when to capture moments for posterity. “Vinyl, nice.”

“Thanks. I’m catching up on the classics.”

Huh, there it was again. Catching up.

Then he noticed that no one else was in the shop.

“You guys aren’t even open yet, are you?”

Steve laughed, his shoulders shaking. “No. We leave the door open for safety reasons.”

“Oh.”

“God, your face! You’re fine, Tony. We know you keep odder hours than us.”

And so, that was how he spent his entire morning in a back corner, watching Steve, Sam, and Bucky work, occasionally joining in on their constant teasing of each other and trying to guess their specials in vain. By the time the sun started to rise and bring in other customers, Tony had two cups of coffee and an ‘orange blossom muffin’. Sam claimed it was healthier than other muffins because it had actual orange slices and cranberries, but Tony tasted the butter in it.

There was no getting dressed for corporate executives. There were no phones ringing off the hook for him. He didn’t even pull out his tablet—he had left it back at SI.

It was the nicest morning he had in a long time.

* * *

Cold sweat started to pour down his back.

The emails in front of him were damning evidence, but not enough.

“Tony?” Pepper asked, coming into the workshop.

He jumped, his heart in his throat.

It was just Pepper, he had to remind himself. Even though the workshop was in SI, there were no security cameras, no bugs. No one was allowed inside without a code, unless the building was on fire, and even then, he had safety protocols that went above and beyond normal regulations. There was no way that Obie would be able to get in and see what he was doing.

“Pep?”

“Tony,” she repeated, laying a hand on his shoulder. She started to rub soothing circles into his back when he flinched. “JARVIS called. He said you weren’t responding. What’s wrong?”

He blinked up at her and looked to the monitor again. The screensaver had popped up, something old and cliché from the old Windows systems. Tears started to well in his eyes. He was clearly having a panic attack. Finding out that the father figure in your life sold you to terrorists and wanted you dead warranted a panic attack, right?

“Pep, you are never going to believe this.”

Pepper’s only reaction was to cover her mouth in silent horror.

They agreed to keep it quiet for now. Then Tony had JARVIS back the email and its trace up to a server that would require a very long password from him. It would be impossible for him to remember the string of numbers and letters, but that was the price of security. JARVIS then went the extra mile and scrubbed everything he could without breaking the internet. If someone came snooping around, they wouldn’t find anything.

“I can’t believe this,” Pepper whispered, shaking her head.

“You make sure you are never alone with him,” Tony begged. “We can’t trust him anymore. God, we should have never trusted him. Keep Happy around at all times, just in case.”

They had to play this smart. They had to go slow.

He wanted to rush over to where Obie was and punch his face in. He wanted his blood on his hands and his brains on the floor. He wanted him to be put on trial and have to personally sign checks to the families of everyone he had ever had a hand in killing.

Pepper was assuring him that she would be careful.

“Tony? Tony!”

He shook his head, taking in a gasping breath.

Pepper was in front of him, her eyes filled with worry.

“W-What? Pep, I’m sorry. Sorry. I—”

She shook her head, giving him a soft look. “It’s okay. I know you’re not okay, though. What can I do to help?”

“Tell—tell Rhodey. Bruce too. If something happens, get him out of here. Call Betty. JARVIS, make backup copies of this. Put it with our evidence against—against Stane. Start looking for others who might have been in on this.”

 _Already doing so, sir_ , JARVIS said, not saying that Tony had already asked him to do so. That was nice of him. He wasn’t thinking straight. It was good that someone was. His hands were shaking so badly. He had to stop Stane. He was overreacting. Putting everyone on high alert and moving them out of the country would tip someone off. But he had to protect—

Pepper squeezed his hand.

“I am going to get some water. In the meantime, I want you to think of five countries you haven’t visited yet, okay?”

He nodded.

He felt numb.

In the end, he could think of a lot of countries that he hadn’t been to yet. About three dozen or so. It was kind of sad, a lot of them were great vacation spots. One of them was Ireland and that got him thinking about how he couldn’t bring Steve into messes like these. It was bad enough that he had Pepper and Rhodey as possible targets for his enemies.

God, he never thought that Ob—Stane would be one of them.

Pepper encouraged him to drink the water. That helped a lot.

The two of them holding onto one another helped even more.

* * *

It was another late night.

Wasn’t that a song, by somebody? Somewhere?

Regardless, it was another late night and ideas were scrambling around in his head. He had spent the last forty-eight hours in the lab, fell asleep on the floor at some point, and noticed that he did not have any coffee. JARVIS, it seemed, did not deem it necessary to buy coffee for him to make, and as much as he loved DUM-E’s shakes and smoothies, they did not keep him awake.

God, he had to stay awake. He couldn’t afford to lose any more time, not when people’s lives depended on it. Not when he needed to make an air-tight case against Stane and make sure the man never saw the light of day again. Then there was all the weapons he had to track down and destroy, not to mention the terrorist rings he had to blow to kingdom come, and—and—

So, he headed down to Steve’s.

Huh. He should really learn the coffee shop’s actual name.

When he came in, it was testimony to how late (or early) it was because no one else was there and the lights were turned down low. The front door was still unlocked and he knew Steve well enough by now, so coming in shouldn’t be too much of an intrusion.

“Sorry, we’re—Tony!”

“Hey there,” Tony said. “You guys are closed?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve said, standing up from what looked to be a massive amount of paperwork. From what Tony could see, a lot of it had to do with bills or government stuff. “About ten minutes ago, but I could—”

Tony waved a hand, stopping him. “Nah, I’m not that much of an asshole to make you work after you just finished cleaning up. Besides, that looks like a more important mess than my mission to evade sleep for as long as possible.”

Steve glanced down at the papers again, scowling. “It’s a right mess, alright.”

Tony glanced at all of the papers: letters from banks, tax forms, and a dozen other things. It looked messy, horribly messy and complicated. He wasn’t sure what was going on here, but he was pretty sure that someone should be fired for those interest rates. No, someone was going to get fired, because this was absolutely criminal.

“Hey, you trust me? At least enough to go out on a limb?”

A wrinkle formed between Steve’s eyebrows. Not quite a scowl, but more like confusion.

“I don’t know—this is financial stuff.”

“And I got lots of experience with financial stuff, or at least, I can hook you up with someone if you need someone’s services.”

It would be nice to do some good for once.

Steve seemed to consider it for a few moments more before nodding. “Okay. What can it hurt?”

“Great!” He moved the papers around so all of them were visible, checking for papers that had anything written on the back. “JARVIS, scan all of these and let’s figure out what is going on.”

 _Of course, sir,_ JARVIS said from his phone, which he was using as a portable scanner.

Apple had nothing on all of the applications he had, with plenty of memory leftover. It had yet to hit the market, he wanted to get some opinions from Rhodey first, but when it did … boom. The market was going to be revolutionized, the phone would be cheaper, and he was going to make sure a portion of the sales went to ensure technology was actually, properly cleaned up, and set up programs to legitimize so-called ‘recycling centers’ in other parts of the world that were just _awful_ and basically a single person taking advantage of—

“Was that your phone?” Steve asked.

“AI,” Tony corrected.

“You have artificial intelligence on your phone?” Steve seemed to be in absolute awe. Most people were, but Steve’s reaction seemed to be a little more genuine than other’s.

“Connected to it, but any more than that, and you’re gonna need security clearance,” Tony grinned.

_Sir, it seems to me that there were some errors made in the documents I highlighted. If you make these corrections and send them through the mail by the end of the week, the matters at hand should be solved in Mr. Roger’s favor._

Steve leaned over to look at the screen. Tony thumbed through a few of the scans to show some of what JARVIS had highlighted.

“You got a printer?”

“In the back office, yeah.”

It did not take them too long to get all of the papers printed out and filled out again. Steve kept meticulous and detailed records, with dates in the file names and easy to identify folders. Tony marveled at it, because the only thing organized in his life were the cabinets in his workshop, and that was only because no one wanted to accidentally grab a wrench when they needed a hammer.

“This is … this is amazing, Tony. Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” he said easily.

Steve shook his head, his hands trembling a bit as he used a paperclip to keep the papers that needed corrections together. JARVIS was sending him emails as needed so they could be sorted electronically, but Tony had a feeling Steve would want to keep the originals and make physical copies of the corrected versions. Pepper would be so proud of that forethought.

“It’s not _nothing_ , Tony. This means my business can stay open. This means we won’t be on the streets after a couple of months, loaded down with debts again.”

Tony felt a pang in his heart. It was all too easy to forget that people took such risks to take on businesses and make something of their own, rather than work for someone else. Making money was difficult; few people really struck gold. Fewer people didn’t worry about bills or rent coming due or if they would have gas for their morning commute or even tuition for school. His mind instantly went to writing them a check, but that instantly felt cheap. It would solve their problems, but it wouldn’t. It would be better to make a donation to a veteran’s charity in their name or leave it anonymous. Then no one would ask questions.

“You’re … welcome,” he said, lamely.

“Are you okay, Tony?” Steve asked, voice full of concern.

Tony blinked. Huh. How had he gotten to a chair?

“Tony?”

“What? Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

He yawned once more and thus time, his jaw cracked.

“It looks like you haven’t slept in ages,” Steve admonished. “Or had a decent meal.”

He shrugged. “No big deal. I do it all the time.”

Steve frowned and _wow_ was that a look of disappointment. Those eyebrows. “I don’t like that. Not to mention it’s really late. Have you been working all night?”

“I got projects and deadlines,” Tony defended.

Sure, some of them were of the ‘go out and burn down terrorist organizations’ variety, but no one had to know those secrets.

“We have a couch and some spare blankets.”

There was another yawn.

“It’s fine, really. The offices are just down the block. Literally across the road. Besides, you need to get back home too.”

Steve did not look convinced. “My walk is just a flight of stairs. You’re liable to get mugged.”

“You live in the floors above?” Tony asked.

“Beats paying rent in two places. Some people would say there’s a few lines crossed, but me, Sam, and Bucky got it worked out since we’re all equal partners.”

“What about Natasha?”

“She’s an equal too, but she doesn’t live here. Something about socks and always-empty milk cartons.”

Tony snickered. “I can see that.”

He realized, half way up the stairs, he was not fully awake to really appreciate that he was behind the counter. Sure, it was a little childish, but there was still a kind of thrill towards going places that were restricted in some way. This was not only behind the counter of the coffee shop, but also where Steve _lived_. This was something he had not thought about yet.

A few steps later, he realized that he was crashing. Body calling it a quits.

Steve had an arm around his waist and was helping him up the stairs.

Wow, when Pepper found out, she was going to skin him alive.

“I don’t think she would be that mean,” Steve said, voice somewhere far away. Was he speaking out loud? Damn, that’s not good.

Tony tried to focus, he did, but when the body calls a quit, it _quits_. He felt his shoes being taken off, then lying down on something soft and kind of lumpy, and a heavy blanket being spread over him. Two people were having a whispered conversation, but no alarms were going off in his head telling him to get out of there. Everything was warm.

Then it was lights out.

* * *

Apparently, there was this miracle drug called ‘sleep’.

Tony didn’t like it, because there was this thing called ‘hours of productivity lost’, but he woke up feeling … a lot better than usual, if he wanted to be honest. The scent of bread and coffee started to waft up from somewhere and Tony couldn’t help but follow his nose.

The living room of the apartment was standard fare: a couch, an ottoman, a low table with random coasters on it, a plant in the window, and a television. He saw some pictures in frames on the wall, but he didn’t want to disturb anyone by wandering around to look at them. Going towards the only door that probably didn’t lead to a bedroom, he found a flight of stairs. If memory served right (he hoped it did), these were the same stairs Steve helped him walk up when he was half out of it from insomnia and too much caffeine.

The wallpaper was peeling a little in some places, but the kitchen he discovered was positively cheerful and lively.

There was a little nook with an old table and some wooden chairs with soft green cushions. A professional set up filled the rest of the room, all sleek and modern: a huge island in the center, plenty of cabinets for storage, a huge refrigerator, an industrial sized mixing machine, and just about everything else a team of bakers would need. All the scents of the coffee shop were in full force here. A single breath was all it took to get Tony’s mouth to start watering.

Sam was already kneading dough, Bucky was chopping up different fruits, and Steve had a clipboard in his hands while he checked through a number of cabinets.

“Good morning,” Natasha said, coming through the back door and scaring the living daylights out of him.

“Nat, stop trying to kill people,” Sam grunted as he worked more flour into the dough. “It’s not funny.”

“You just scare easily,” Natasha chuckled, going over to the table with a drink carrier.

“Starbucks?” Tony gasped.

“You don’t eat what you make,” Natasha said with the most serious face he had ever seen her don. “That is for fools and idiots, of which I am neither.”

“Sleep alright?” Steve asked, hanging his clipboard on a hook. “Sorry we weren’t there.”

“What time is it?” Tony asked. Sleepiness was shaking off of him quickly, as it always did. It only ever seemed to sink its claws into him when he _should_ be asleep. Natasha wordlessly gave him a cup of something. He took a sip before he realized it was green tea.

She gave him a smug smile.

That fiend.

“A little past eight,” Steve said. “Don’t worry, I already called Pepper and explained that you would be a little late.”

Oh shit. Tony felt himself pale.

“Whoa, don’t worry about it,” Bucky said as he put the cut up fruit into containers. “Your phone rang, so we answered it. It’s fine.”

“Oh, no. You don’t realize how mad Pep can get. She runs the company like clockwork and hates it when I throw a wrench in the machine.”

God, she must have been worried sick!

He owed her flowers. A room full of flowers, even though she begged him to never, ever do that again.

“Aren’t you part of the machine?” Sam asked. “It’s only _Stark_ Industries.”

“I’m starting to think he’s the wrench,” Steve said.

“Oh, shut it,” Tony muttered, resigning himself to the green tea he had to drink now. Natasha seemed to take pity on him, because a basket of croissants was placed in front of him. He could tell from the smell of them that they were Steve’s. God, he could live off of those. He would happily succumb to scurvy and blocked arteries if he could eat them forever and ever.

Time crawled slowly, comfortably, after that.

His joints were starting to wake up, which meant that they were protesting very loudly at the abuse he had put them through, and the same went for his eyes and neck. However long he had been working had done a number on him, which meant he likely needed to apologize to Pepper (again), Bruce and Rhodey for a million different things, and catch up on work that had fallen by the wayside. That would be another work binge in and of itself, but …

But Natasha was working on making pastry cream, Sam was checking on cookies and muffins, Steve was finishing up the inventory check, and Bucky was working on some cake batter. They all chatted as they worked, nothing too out of the ordinary or serious. It felt like the morning he came in before they opened. Everything was warm, soft, and cozy. It felt like he belonged. There was no pressure for him to do anything; he could just exist if he wanted to.

If something was going to give him hell, it would be later.

* * *

Hell finally did come for him, in the form of some terrorist cell locations and a village that needed saving.

He made his excuses.

He didn’t come back for three days.

Pepper called. Rhodey called. Bruce even managed to call once, because he was out of the country on some retreat from society again.

Tony didn’t stop—and he didn’t come back—until he was sure that he got every single gun, bomb, and flare. Then he made sure to gather all of the intel he could, because like hell he was going to just set everything on fire. That was how cockroaches came back with larger armies: when everyone thought that they were destroyed and had nothing left.

Ten Rings was going down in flames.

Soon, Tony swore to himself, Stane was going down with them.

* * *

Reports came in. Everyone speculated.

Tony rather liked the name ‘Iron Man’, even though it was _not iron you uneducated_ —

That was not the point. Three people in this world instantly knew everything that the journalists were trying to figure out. Bruce became a little green, yelling at him for being irresponsible and possibly causing future retaliation. Rhodey was just as pissed, because he had to deal with the fallout and the clean-up and the repercussions, not to mention the possible power vacuum. Pepper shook him until his teeth rattled, because it was one thing for him to get kidnapped, it was another thing for him to dive back into danger without as much as a note.

Tony had to admit, later that evening, as he tried to work through another panic attack, that they had a point. Even as he tried to justify his actions with ‘hundreds of weapons that could no longer hurt anyone’ and ‘so much intel on so many criminal activities’, they had a point.

They all hugged it out, though, or in Bruce’s case, shared some tea over a long discussion, catching him up on everything, since he didn’t know about the armor before now. It was agreed that as long as Tony gave them a heads up, they would be alright with him using the suit again, especially if it was because of an emergency. It was like they knew the suit made him feel safe.

Pepper commented that they should have known he would have used the suit; he didn’t build something for it to be shoved in a corner and forgotten.

For now, it was time for that wonderful miracle called “coffee”.

“Hey, punk!” Bucky called over his shoulder when he came up to the counter. “Get your ass out here!”

“Is something wrong?” Steve called, coming out. “Buck, you know you shouldn’t—Tony!”

Steve looked a little too relieved to see him.

“Everything alright?” Tony asked, frowning.

“No,” Bucky said, glaring at Tony hard. “I need to take my break. Steve, you’re taking over.”

He left for the kitchen or some place before Steve could properly protest.

Tony stared, awkwardness starting to creep up his spine. Steve looked just about as mortified as well, as if he had no idea what was going on either. Silence stretched on. Thank god no one was in line at the moment, a rare lull, or he was likely to blurt out something stupid or spill his coffee or do something even more stupid that would get him banned and then he would never see Steve again or hear Sam and Bucky bicker or get half-threatened by Natasha—

“You were late.”

Tony turned back to Steve with a dignified, “Huh?”

Steve was starting to blush, wringing a rag in his hands. “You always come in early, around eight thirty, not long after the morning rush. The afternoons are more random, but I didn’t see you at all this week.”

“Oh—there were emergency meetings,” Tony quickly supplied. “Things are good now! No more fires to put out.”

Tony’s heart was hammering. Apparently, Steve had gotten worried about him when he didn’t show up at his usual time. He hadn’t even realized that he _had_ a usual time. It was just that he hoped to catch Steve at that time more often than not, based on that first meeting. Whoever did their scheduling system either believed in complete randomness or really had a thing against them seeing each other again with any regularity.

He was never, ever going to do _anything_ that would interfere with him coming in around eight-thirty every morning ever again, _so help him God_.

“Oh,” Steve breathed. “That’s … good. That it was just a meeting.”

“Well, Pepper’s gonna be pissed at me again. I skipped out on today’s. My PA,” he added after a momentary look of confusion from Steve. “She liked your apple cake.”

“Stop moonin’ over him! Ask him out!” Bucky yelled from behind the door.

“For all our sanity’s sake!” Sam begged.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud! Amscray!” Steve yelled.

“Then stop being a chicken!” Bucky shouted.

Steve turned around and stared at Tony. He was turning horribly red, the blush starting to go down his neck and beyond his shirt collar. Tony swallowed, feeling short of breath.

Someone behind them coughed. “Look, I like a good romance movie and all myself, but there’s a bit of a line and I’m sure some people are less patient than I.”

Steve’s eyes snapped to them, still horrified. “O-Of course I mean I’ll—um—Tony?”

Tony felt like he wanted to run and die in a hole and get zapped by lightning.

“I’ll … wait … over … here …” he stammered out, pointing to a corner by the counter as he went, trying not to stumble over his feet.

Steve awkwardly nodded. After a few minutes of taking orders, Sam and Bucky decided to have mercy on him and help at the register, the little assholes. Tony felt jittery the whole time, like one little thing would set him off. It was not going to be good. By the time Steve made his way over to him, Tony was pretty sure he was hyperventilating.

“So, dinner and a movie?” Steve asked, looking anywhere but at him.

“Uh, sure,” Tony said. His heart was going a mile a minute. He was so glad he designed a better arc reactor. His old one would have never stood up to this amount of stress.

“Really?” Steve asked.

Tony nodded, feeling a little confidence come back. “Yeah. I’ll meet you here?”

“Friday at eight?”

“It’s a date.”

Both of them ignored Sam muttering how Steve was going to be love-struck for the whole day.

* * *

Something in SI changed.

It was almost palatable.

Tony didn’t like it, but he had to pretend nothing was wrong.

That he was completely ignorant of it all.

* * *

“Tony? Are you okay?”

This latest meeting went smoothly. Everyone chatted, the numbers were all correct, and everyone was optimistic about the contracts that they would sign once their lawyers had one last look over them. It had been a good day, as far as good days at SI could go.

“Huh?” he asked, looking up from his phone.

Steve had given him his number and while Tony didn’t have the courage to start texting him yet, he did send Steve a starter message so he could be added to his contacts.

“Are you okay? You seem distracted lately.”

Even though she looked perfectly immaculate, there were bags under her eyes. Tony hoped that she wasn’t worrying about him again, or that he would pull off another stupid stunt.

He would never regret burning all those bombs and guns, but he would regret scaring her.

“I … got a date,” he found himself saying. “Friday.”

Pepper looked surprised for a moment before she started smiling. “Please tell me it was that barista—Steve, right? Bruce keeps saying that every time you see him, it’s like you’re walking on sunshine.”

“I am going to kill Bruce.”

“No, you’re not,” Pepper said, looking positively giddy. “He’s right. I’m happy for you.”

Well then.

Tony rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little warm. Bashful. Embarrassed?

“Thanks.”

* * *

Dinner and a movie turned out to be something straight out of a classic movie, _with_ a classic movie. There was a diner a few blocks away from the coffee shop, one of those places that seemed to exist forever and somehow never seem dated. The tile floors were glossy, there was neon in the jukebox, and the menu was horribly expansive. Tony was tempted to ask for a chocolate malt with two straws to complete the picture, but that felt like teasing.

The best part was that his jitters _finally_ melted away. They chatted over their burgers. He stole a few of Steve’s fries. Steve happily took Tony’s extra lettuce and added it to his burger. They joked and mused, asked ridiculous questions, and weren’t interrupted by well-meaning friends. If anyone recognized Tony for who he was, they kept their mouths shut. He had a feeling that someone from the paparazzi would print photos tomorrow, but he didn’t care.

He was on a date. With _Steve_.

It was going _well_.

The movie part of their date explained why Steve wanted this particular evening. A movie theater seemed to have themed nights here and there, kind of copying what Turner Classic Movies occasionally did. The night’s feature was a 1922 silent movie, starring John Barrymore as Sherlock Holmes.

“I know it’s a bit old fashioned, but—” Steve cut himself off, rubbing the back of his neck.

Tony found himself shaking his head. “No, no. This is … this is great. I could use a little more ‘old fashioned’ in my life.”

“I remember seeing it once as a kid,” Steve said. “It was a classic.”

When was the last time he had a low-key date like this? One where neither of them were after some sort of deal or trade agreement? Where he didn’t feel like he had to pull out all the complicated, over the top, and expensive shots to impress his date? When was the last time someone’s company and good food was all they needed to have a good time?

Tony honestly couldn’t remember ever having a date like this.

It was starting to make him cross out date ideas, for when he asked Steve out. God, he hoped Steve said yes. He hoped nothing ruined this evening and a second chance.

“I haven’t seen this one before, so it’s going to be completely new for me.”

Steve’s smile was so bright, Tony was left dazed for a moment.

Steve used those two seconds to buy their tickets and did not even give Tony a chance to make a token protest.

* * *

It was something different, watching a silent movie.

With just music playing to help someone guess at the pace of the plot and the mood of the setting, one really had to make a lot of inferences and pay attention. Overall, the plot wasn’t too exciting—it seemed to be a mashup of different plots from the original canon, set in the 1920s instead of something more Victorian. Tony supposed that was a trait of Sherlock Holmes: he could be adapted to any time period, depending upon what someone wanted to do.

The acting was really different too. More gestures, more facial expressions, but nothing over the top. Not being able to hear inflections—and those text cards—really stopped him from being able to immerse himself in the world before him. But every character looked different and unique, from their costumes to heights and body types. Without sound, little details like that needed to be more present, more authentic. There wasn’t an accent that could give an audience all the context they needed for someone’s background. They had to pay attention.

Around them, some people were starting to get a little bored. There was more rustling, more murmuring. Tony munched on some popcorn and glanced over at Steve, only to have their eyes meet. In the dim light, he could feel his cheeks flush. Steve looked a little embarrassed too.

“What do you think?” Steve whispered, leaning in.

“It’s …”

The music got dramatic all of the sudden. He and Steve looked back to see a shadow of Moriarty growing along the wall of a staircase until he appears in Sherlock’s parlor room, where Sherlock was slowly inching his way to a corner, a gun already drawn.

Tony held his breath.

The two actors crept around the room, caught in some deadly, instinctive dance, just missing one another by mere inches and seconds, until Sherlock slipped into another room.

“Whoa,” Steve breathed out.

Tony just nodded.

Sadly, this was also the part of the film where there were missing scenes, but he could figure out the gasp well enough with what was there. At least most of the film had been rediscovered, instead of lost to the ages forever. A lot more silent films were coming out of the woodworks, people deciding that their preservation was worth the expense and time.

“Did it feel like they just dropped the whole ‘blackmailing the prince’ thing?” Tony asked when the movie had ended and they were heading to the exit of the dimmed theater. “I think the girl might have had more to say about all that and the death of her sister.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Twenty-six minutes is a lot of time to fill in those blanks, but the romance seemed really weird. Almost forced.”

“Right! This is Sherlock Holmes and that girl is no Irene Adler!”

“Irene would have manipulated Moriarty from the moment she got captured,” Steve added, using air quotes.

“Did you just use air quotes?” Tony asked in disbelief.

“Yes?” Steve drawled, looking a little unsure.

Tony spared him a little. “Dork.”

“Takes one to know one,” Steve said, but his grin was all light-hearted teasing.

“Then my statement still stands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coffee Shop AU Tropes & Cliché Suggestions From The Stony Discord Server:
> 
> Cup messages/pickup lines  
> Misspelled names and nicknames  
> No one but them makes it right  
> Pining  
> Everyone done with it  
> Memorizing order  
> Weird flavors, tries them all because love  
> “oh hi, totally didn’t expect to see you here at this one hole in the wall coffee shop literally no one in the entire world besides you knows about. what a coincidence.”  
> Person a is a writer who works best on coffee at midnight and person b's coffee shop is the only one on campus thats open  
> "He didnt come in at 830 today, he always comes in at 830 every day! What happen???!?"
> 
> All of these will probably end up in here somehow!


	3. A Place Down In Texas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos on the last chapter. They really made my day as they came in! I hope all of you are doing well and are being as safe as you can. I know this world-wide lock down is hard, and our lives are never going to be the same after this, but I know we can get through it. Hang in there!

This was pathetic.

Who kidnapped someone on a Saturday?

Saturdays were meant for sleeping in. Saturdays were meant for early morning cartoons and sugary cereals. Breaks from work and studying.

But he supposed that was incorrect for most of the work force. There were plenty of people who did not get to sleep in on Saturdays. Most of them were underpaid too, which sucked, but he was going to have to tackle that social issue later.

He needed to get un-kidnapped first.

Upon opening his eyes and seeing a burlap bag around his head, Tony kept his cool until the last of the symptoms of the drug wore off. He had no idea how long he had been out, but by his estimates, it took an hour for the drug to finally work its way out of his system. In the meantime, the people who came in and out of the room he was being held in all had loose lips, blabbering about this project or that mission. He carefully filed all of that away and hoped that villains never learned to never talk in front of prisoners. It always made them easier to defeat.

Yeah. The drug was still messing with his head if he was thinking his life was currently playing out a Saturday morning cartoon episode. Pity they hadn’t used ropes to tie him; the zip ties meant that they were a little more forward thinking than a typical mad scientist.

“When is he going to wake up?” someone complained. “We need access to those mainframes.”

“My team needs him to finish some algorithms first,” a second person said.

Tony inwardly scoffed. Unless he was at gunpoint the entire time, he was not going to do anything for them, whoever they were.

He’d find a way to screw them over first.

“That is nothing,” a third voice said. “I want to poke around that arc reactor of his.”

That made his blood freeze.

No. No way were they getting near there.

How did they even—

_No one was supposed to know_.

How long had he been asleep? Had they examined him? Did they know his life depended upon an upgraded car battery _not_ failing on him? Did they—

“Hey, you sure he’s not awake?”

He closed his eyes and made his face go slack. Seconds ticked by, but no one came over to take the bag off his head. Until they did something, he had to act like he was asleep. It was the only way he was going to gain any real advantage here.

“Perhaps they gave him too much of the drug,” a fourth person mused. “Or perhaps his system took it harder than most. Physiologies do differ.”

Hmm. That person sounded like a doctor.

The others were clearly mad scientists or black hats at the least. Were they all part of the same organization? Was this some sort of villain coalition? He wouldn’t put it past some lower-tier villains to be desperate enough to team up for some larger goal. He just hoped that it ended like it did in the comics: with the heroes failing and a lot of bad guys in jail.

More people came in and out for the next hour. Then, someone came in, but they didn’t say a word. Tony counted the minutes. Five, ten, twenty. He could barely hear the person breathe and to be honest, their staring was getting to be uncomfortable. But, no one else came into the room, or if they did, they did so without making a sound.

But maybe his charade wasn’t over yet.

He took in a slow, deep breath, like he was waking up, and then gave a fake startle.

“Where am I? Who turned off the lights?”

“Stop the theatrics,” someone new said, tearing the bag off his head. “I know you have been awake for some time. You have something we want.”

Tony blinked and then frowned deeply at the tall, burly man before him. The room he was in was empty and basic, save for a table and some chairs. What sent a chill down Tony’s spine was seeing the skull-and-octopus on the wall and the man’s uniform.

“You could have just called. I have a line dedicated for people wanting to extort money from me.”

The HYDRA agent did not look amused. “We have plenty of money,” the agent said. “We need something else from you.”

“Stock in my company? Sorry, I’m not in charge of that.”

The man sneered. “Second guess and you’re still wrong. And they call you a genius. Get up.”

Tony wiggled in his chair. “Uh, would love to.”

The man rolled his eyes and went behind him, using a blade to cut the zip ties. Tony rotated and rubbed his wrists, careful not to move too much. The guy looked like he could snap him in two.

“I said, get up,” the man snarled, shoving his shoulder.

“Okay! Okay! But I demand to be read my rights! You can’t just kidnap someone and force them to do something for you. That’s just in the movies.”

The man chuckled sinisterly. “Well, guess what we just did?”

Tony was pushed and prodded down a carpeted hallway until they reached a room with a few computers and not much else in it. There was a small window, but the blinds were shut. He couldn’t gleam much information from the hallway alone, but the walls lacked any cracks or crumbling plaster, and the carpet was rather clean, so this wasn’t some abandoned warehouse.

He thought back to the goon mentioning they had plenty of money.

Who was sponsoring them, then?

And who the hell would sponsor HYDRA?

Okay. Not as thoughtful of a question as he could have come up with. People sponsored terrorist organizations all the time. People joined terrorist organizations all the time. Hell, most of the people who committed acts of terror, as the dictionary defined it, weren’t even in large organizations bent on taking over the world. They were just people who wanted to cause change of some sort and thought that violence and chaos was the best method. If they didn’t have some twisted, racist ideals pushing their actions in one direction or another already. He knew about those people intimately. He was only in the hands of such—

“So?” Tony drawled, putting a stop to those thoughts before he spiraled. “You got a blue screen of death or something?”

The man shoved him into a chair roughly.

“There is an algorithm. Fix it.”

“Or what?”

“Or I will beat you until you do,” the man threatened, leaning in and baring his teeth.

Tony refused to inch back or even blink. “They proved that torture only makes people say what their captors want them to say. Anything to stop the pain.”

“Then get to work, or we’ll have to verify that theory.” He stepped away and motioned to someone outside of the door. Another agent came to guard him.

Or maybe just make sure to kill him if he tried something funny.

“What am I even supposed to fix?” Tony asked, being petulant on purpose.

The man sneered. “That’s on a need to know basis, but you should be smart enough to find the errors in the code. But if you’re not or you do anything to sabotage what is there … we will know and you won’t be the only one paying.”

Tony glared at him, but the man only turned around and left. The guard said nothing, barely looking at him. He had his hand on his gun, though.

Tony swallowed thickly, turned around, and started typing.

Rule Number One Of Kidnapping Tony Stark: _never let him near any tech_.

The first thing he did was create a new Twitter handle.

The guard they left him with didn’t seem too keen on monitoring his ‘progress’ or making sure he didn’t do something like break through their firewalls and dismantle their monitoring programs to work for him instead. There were at least ten other agents using Twitter and another twenty on Facebook. No one would care about one more, especially when he made it look like someone else’s computer was accessing the website.

Hopefully, Pepper would understand the obnoxious tweets and mentions. He only said he would give her a room full of flowers and as far as he knew, he had yet to do anything that would require that amount of apologizing. SHIELD would likely see the tweets as well, because he knew they were keeping tabs on him. Huge technological giant escapes terrorists after three months without anyone knowing how or a decent press cover?

If they didn’t have tabs on him, he was going to be very, very disappointed.

After considering it for a moment, he sent a tweet to Rhodey: DID YOU KNOW CAP IS ALIVE?

It was like sending up a thousand emergency flares.

“Hey, what are you doing?” a new guard yelled, striding over to his work station.

“Uh, working on the algorithms?” he asked, like the guard was an idiot. He probably was.

The guard did not look amused though. He drew his gun from his holster and smacked it against his empty palm like a baton. Like it was supposed to be scary. It was just poor gun etiquette if anyone asked him, but they probably wouldn’t.

“You’re Tony Stark. I wouldn’t put it past you do so something else.”

Huh, maybe not a complete idiot.

“Well, I don’t want to die,” Tony said. “So, here. Take a look.”

He pushed his chair back and let the guard see his screen, which did have the algorithms pulled up. Not that he was helping them become more efficient or anything. Why do that when he could create a back entrance for JARVIS and scramble all of their data after he was done? His phone had been on him when he was kidnapped and JARVIS was harder to turn off than most. They would need to throw his phone into a volcano to fully disable him.

If he knew his creation, which he did, he likely was already in their systems.

Standard protocol.

The guard looked over the code for a few moments, but Tony knew when someone was trying to make it seem like they knew code and other tech. It wasn’t working.

The man was clueless.

“Fine,” he grumbled, pulling away. “But if you do anything …”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tony interrupted, rolling his eyes. “Chinese water torture, I know the drill.”

When the guard was finally on the other side of the room again, where the door was, Tony went back to hacking the security camera feed. He didn’t need a physical door to escape.

* * *

One fire alarm later and he was out. It was almost comical.

All the guard said was “don’t move” before he rushed out of the room, not even locking the door. Tony finished up a few things on the computer before heading out the door too. No one would find anything on the computer, or in a few hours, on any computer in the network they used. Closed systems were so nice in that sense.

Everything in the hallway was in chaos, people rushing from the lower floors. The alarms were blaring and the white lights above those alarms were bound to give someone a seizure. Why someone approved such blinding lights when—no, no Tony, focus.

There were more people in regular, civilian clothes, looking panicked and alarmed, but he had no way to know who was HYDRA or not. He initially tried to hide among the crowd, but someone clapped their hand on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

He yelped and spun around. The guard that was left with him looked furious, but he didn’t have his weapon drawn.

“What are you doing?” someone exclaimed, shoving past them. “There’s a fire!”

Tony used the distraction and ducked into a stairwell. There were others already going down the stairs, but the crowd was much thinner. There was so much empty space. So many openings for someone to shoot and only two ways go to: up or down.

He cursed his luck and started racing up the stairs, sticking close to the wall in hopes that even if someone looked up, they wouldn’t see him right away.

He ran as fast as he could and didn’t look over his shoulder.

Opening the door to a random floor, he was surprised that no one had followed him.

Then the alarms stopped.

Crap.

Weighing his options, Tony ducked into a supply closet. He didn’t see anyone on this floor, but that meant nothing. If HYDRA of all things was still in operation, that meant they had to be smart and well-funded. They weren’t your run-of-the-mill white supremacy organization with handmade explosive and just a single plan to send their message to the world.

As he realized the other world-wide implications of this horrible bit of history still existing, he concluded that needed to come up with a much, much better plan than ‘find a weapon’ and ‘get to an elevator’. There was no guarantee that he wouldn’t come across some agents determined to kill him along the way, but he would cross those bridges when he got to them.

In the echoing silence, Tony heard someone’s footsteps approach the closet before pausing right in front of it. He held his breath, looking at their shadows on the floor. The supply closet was small and cramped, stuffed with all sorts of things. He took a few steps back. His hand came across something cold and metal. It wasn’t attached to anything. The door slowly opened.

Before he could think about it, Tony swung the pipe around.

Captain America managed to block the pipe with his forearm before Tony could smash his face in.

“Tony Stark?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“The one and only,” Tony replied, a little awe-struck. “You here to bust me out?”

“Seems like you got that mostly covered,” Captain America said, before grabbing Tony’s arm and looking him over. “You alright? Are you injured anywhere?”

Inside, Tony was starting to freak out a little bit. One, Captain America saving them from a villain was the childhood dream of _everyone_. Two, this meant that Captain America was put back on ‘duty’ after his ‘recovery’. Sheesh, SHIELD wasted no time. He had only been out of the ice for about a week. Three, this meant that his kidnapping was involved on all of this on some deeper level. Things were getting messy. Messier.

Oh boy.

“They drugged me with something, but it’s out of my system now.”

“That’s great,” Captain America replied. He seemed to be satisfied that he wasn’t hurt, though the concern seemed to be out of place. “Did you have an escape route or anything in place? My partner and I were going to secure a pathway to an exit where SHIELD could safely pick the three us of up. We already have other men surrounding the building discreetly.”

Tony shook his head. “No, I just got away from the goons. Your plan isn’t bad, but they have eyes on your guys already. You need to extract them. They have heat-seeking missiles at the ready.”

“Seriously?” Captain America asked. “You guys finished developing that tech?”

He shrugged. “What can I say? We humans like to blow things up.”

Captain America rolled his eyes and informed someone else of the change of plans through an ear piece. Once he was finished with the call, he waved his hand to follow him down a hallway.

“We can still at least get to an exit. Whatever intel you have would be great.”

“Not a problem. The fire alarm sent a lot of people packing, but I’m not sure how many of them were … civilian workers of HYDRA or how many agents stuck around. I was hoping to sneak out to the ground level by using the elevator or crowds as covered.”

Tony was happy to avoid a fight if he could, but that seemed unlikely.

“Good thinking. We were wondering what that was about.”

“Where is your partner?” Tony asked after a moment. “Did you two get separated?”

“No.”

Tony spun around and came face-to-face with someone straight out of a dystopian novel.

He dropped his pipe and hastily picked it up again.

“Relax, this is my partner,” Captain America assured, placing a hand on the creepy assassin’s shoulder.

Tony gave him an incredulous look.

Black tactical gear made up the man’s entire outfit. There was even some sort of mask covering the lower half of his face, goggles obscuring his features further. The only bit of skin he could see was his fingers, because apparently gloves got in the way of using the sniper rifle he was carrying. He wondered, then, if his loose hair was a liability or a stubborn fashion choice.

In the corner of his eye, just on the edge of his lower peripheral vision, he saw a metallic sheen.

“Target acquired?” came the garbled voice.

Smart to disguise himself further.

“Yes,” Captain America replied. “Safe and sound.”

That was an odd choice of words, if anyone asked Tony.

The sniper nodded and turned around, heading down the hallway once more. They followed. “I got an escape route this way. Our backup is falling back now.”

“Does that mean we have a number of bodies to step over?”

The sniper looked over his shoulder and Tony was _sure_ he was giving Captain America an unamused look. “They’re only bodies if they never wake up. Agent Coulson is going to have a lot of people to interrogate when we’re done here.”

“Well, that’s swell,” Captain America said, rolling his eyes.

That explained why no one came after him in the stairwell, Tony thought. Captain America and his partner probably used the fire alarm to their advantage. Good.

Their walk down the hallway was quiet, uninterrupted, and completely anticlimactic. If only he could have left the place in his suit, blowing up everything as he went. That would have been _so satisfying_. Sadly, that only happened in the movies. The suit was back home.

Knowing that anything could happen that would change the situation, Tony fell silent when Captain America and the sniper did. The two of them worked perfectly in-sync, communicating silently with hand gestures. Something tickled at the back of Tony’s brain, like his subconscious was noticing details, but didn’t want to share with the rest of the class just yet.

He tried his best to move quietly, but with how empty the hallways were, it felt like even his breath was echoing. They were setting a pace he could keep up with, not that he couldn’t keep up with their typical pace, but they hardly knew that he was training himself to be more than a typical technological giant living off royalties and martinis. While the slower pace was making him nervous, it was allowing him to look around the building some more.

They came to a row of windows, giving them what normally would have been a lovely view of the city around them. The blueprints he looked up before he made his escape only told him so much, but that view confirmed his suspicions.

Then Captain America put his arm out, stopping him from turning a corner.

Tony held his breath. A moment passed.

Gunshots ricocheted. The sniper returned fire.

Something exploded behind them. Captain America used his shield to block most of it.

A small grenade bounced down the hallway.

The sniper threw the grenade back where it came from and Captain America leaped in front, using his shield to block off some of that blast. Going back wasn’t an option. Tony could feel the heat of the explosions and the rumble of walls falling down. This entire floor was probably structurally compromised and given that they were in a corner, they were trapped.

“Fuck,” Captain America whispered under his breath as Tony’s ears rang. “You alright?”

Tony felt disorientated, but he had to focus. Focus. Blueprints, yes. He quickly closed his eyes (he was not in a cave, he was not wet, he was not struggling to breathe) and started to figure something out. There had to be some way they could get out of this mess without getting killed.

“Make a hole in that wall!” he yelled, pointing to the interior wall that now had deep cracks in it.

Captain America exchanged a nod with the sniper and moved to give them better cover with his shield. As the gunfire continued, the sniper moved to where Tony was and started to punch a hole in the wall. With his fist. The wall started to cave in after about three hits. Wow. Captain America reached behind him and pulled a gun off of the sniper’s utility belt, picking off some more HYDRA agents who were getting closer. Finally, the gunfire started to ebb.

Tony kicked in the last of the drywall, revealing the space he knew would be there. They all quickly went inside, following his lead.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins. It was so _odd_ for these two to trust him like this. Later, they would probably make a comment like how it was his plan and he obviously knew something they didn’t and while that was technically true … They still trusted him to not lead them into a dead end or something worse. It was a heady feeling.

The space between the walls was hard to move through, with broken bricks, pipes, and electrical wires all over the place, but they probably bought themselves some time with this move. Hopefully. As long as the HYDRA goons were thrown back enough with that grenade, they should be able to get out of this mess. They kind of left an obvious hole in the wall.

“We’re gonna make another left,” Tony said, coughing at the dust that was getting stirred up.

“I think I know where we’re going,” Captain America said, right behind him. “You found some blueprints to the building, didn’t you?”

“Yup. The idiots let me have access to a computer.”

The sniper laughed; the sound was horrifying. “Goons are always the same.”

Right. They had gone head-to-head with HYDRA before. Tony guessed some things never changed.

“72nd floor?” Captain America guessed.

“Yeah. We can take the elevator and be in the lower lobby in forty seconds.”

Tony was not sure what drugs they used on him, but if he slept through an entire plane ride to Dallas _and_ being transported to the Bank of America Plaza, it had to have been a good one.

This was going to end up on the news tonight.

“We’re on the 64th floor,” the sniper said. “Think you can outrun them?”

Tony grinned sharply. “If I can’t, this isn’t the first time I have been held hostage.”

Captain America and the sniper shared a look.

Tony decided not to read into it and let them think what they want. They could always discuss it and have a heart-to-heart once they survived this.

* * *

They should have known that going up nine floors without any more hiccups was too much to ask for. After they punched another hole into a maintenance closet, they realized that their coms were down. Captain America and the sniper clearly did not like the lack of outside support, but they seemed to roll with it.

As they walked down another hallway towards a staircase that would provide them more cover, they didn’t come across anyone else. Most everyone who was not HYDRA should have been cleared out of the building due to Tony’s fire alarm, but another glance out a window showed no signs of firefighters or even police.

“That isn’t suspicious,” Tony muttered under his breath.

“Famous last words,” Captain America muttered back.

At that moment, they heard a gun lock.

Down the hallway was another HYDRA goon, the one who had shoved him into the computer terminal in the first place. Tony felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He had no idea who this was or what he was capable of. He didn’t want to find out.

“I should have told you,” the man sneered. “I’d blast your brains out if you got out of that chair.”

“Should have never let me have a computer,” Tony quipped. He gripped the pipe he was still holding onto. It would be worthless in a gun fight, but it still gave him some measure of comfort.

“Maybe,” the man said, still cocky and sure, “I suppose—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence because the sniper shot him in the forehead with another gun he pulled out of his belt.

Tony felt all the breath leave his body.

“I hate HYDRA,” the sniper said. “Bunch of melodramatic idiots.”

Captain America was shaking his head, but it looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh. Okay. They were used to this. Gun fights and war zones and killings. He had to remember that they literally came out of fighting a war that changed history. This was normal for them.

“Stark?” Captain America said quietly. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. I know. Let’s … let’s go.”

As the sniper reached down and grabbed the goon’s walkie-talkie, Tony kept his distance as he waked past the body.

After that, Tony was not sure how they got the 72nd floor without any more incidents. A place like this should have been crawling with agents. There should have been a bomb ready to detonate or at least use as a threat against them. A secret organization bent on taking over the world doesn’t just kidnap one of the world’s most predominate figures just to lose him to their most famous and hated enemies. Someone did not drop the ball.

So just _what_ was going on?

When was the other shoe going to drop?

* * *

A bomb went off.

Famous last words indeed.

* * *

His ears rang.

Someone was yelling something.

Were there police sirens? Did someone finally call in some backup?

“To—Stark!”

Tony could have _sworn_ that Captain America was going to say his name.

Like he knew him, but that was impossible.

“I’m—I’m alright!” he called, coughing. “Just some allergies!”

Tony could hear the sniper say something, but the static of the voice over and Tony’s own coughs prevented him from making the words out. He tried to wipe some of the dust off of his face and out of his eyes, but it was useless. It just smeared or rose up in dust clouds again.

“Just come towards us slowly,” Cap said more calmly. “We’re maybe ten feet away.”

Something crumbled to Tony’s left, making him freeze. Dust cleared after a moment and Tony saw that he was maybe a few inches from plummeting god knows how many feet down. Snapped cables sparked. Iron beams were twisted and sticking out all sorts of ways. Tile and concrete fell down, so far down that he didn’t hear it land anywhere.

He gulped.

No. He was not going to panic. He was not—

Across that gaping abyss, he saw Captain America and the sniper look at him almost helplessly. They were covered in dust too, shrapnel causing them to bleed where it tore through their uniforms. He knew that he was likely bleeding too, but he was clearly too shocked to register any pain. He hoped there wasn’t anything life threatening at the moment.

Whatever had gone off either had to have been huge or it had to have been connected to a number of other smaller bombs. How had they even survived? How did he get so far away from them? How the hell was he going to make it back to them safely?

“I—I think we need a Plan B,” Tony said.

The average human could jump about ten feet, if they had enough strength in their legs and a good running start. He would need about sixty feet if he wanted to make it and … yeah, that was not a possibility. It would be a huge risk, one he didn’t think he could make. Looking to the walls, he tried to figure out if there was some way he could climb over to them, but …

“Don’t even think about it,” Captain America said. “None of that is stable enough to support you.”

“The upper floors are going to be compromised too,” the sniper said. “I don’t think we’ll be going to the roof either, unless the bomb was localized to this corner of the building.”

“Can you get a call out?” Tony asked. “See if we can get an extraction team?”

Someone was bound to have called the police now.

This wasn’t like _Die Hard_ where the police ignored a panicked person on their emergency channel. There was clear evidence that something was going down.

Or, well, he hoped, because one never knew what protocols were in other cities and states, or how they handled things in general, because—no, no, he was not going down that road.

“No,” the sniper called, clearly annoyed. “Signal’s jammed.”

Well, damn. There went that idea.

“Stark, how does it look around on your end?” Captain America asked.

“Uh, let me check,” he said, backing away from the edge a bit more.

Looking through all of the cracked drywall and fallen ceiling tiles, Tony saw that while things were messy, there was not as much damage as he thought there was. The worst of the damage seemed to be under them, as if HYDRA’s focus was to destroy something else. Maybe there was something in a room on the floor below that they didn’t want anyone to get to.

Tony inched his way some feet, holding his breath the entire time. Nothing seemed to give way as he continued on.

“I think my side is okay,” he called back.

He turned around just in time to see Captain America vault himself to where he was.

The sniper followed, both of them rolling their landings.

“Uh.”

Captain America and the sniper straightened up, like this was child’s play.

“You alright?” Captain America asked.

Tony checked himself before Captain America could again. “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing major.”

Captain America looked like he was going to say something more when the sniper put his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

“Continue to the roof?” Tony asked.

The sniper was silent for a moment. It was kind of creepy, not being able to see his expression, but Tony had a feeling he was weighing their options. Tony was as well, but with so many variables, it was hard to pinpoint if they could get to the roof safely.

“There is a data center along the way. We could find some tools and get word out somehow.”

Tony thought about the blueprints.

They could go around to the other side of the building, find some more emergency staircases. There were multiple ones on all sides for safety reasons. It might give HYDRA some more openings to attack them, but this high up? They couldn’t just jump out of a window and stick a landing. Or even onto one of those giant inflatable landing pads.

“Sounds like the best plan we’ve got right now,” Tony replied.

Still, he followed them closely, carefully, not willing to put anything more to chance than he had to.

* * *

They walked down the hallway until they found another stairwell door and continued going up from there. As they got further away from where the bomb went off, the damaged decreased. Looked like it was localized to that corner of the building, but man, was it going to be a mess, trying to clean up everything and bring it back up to code again.

Tony turned the facts over and over in his head. HYDRA seemed to have a lot of fire power and agents here. From what he heard while he was ‘unconscious’, there were a lot of projects going on in this building as well. Logically, there had to be a lot of intel and resources coming and going, so why was the defense of this place so haphazard? Sure, there was that bomb and the guards with the grenades and military rifles, and heat-seeking missiles, but …

He shook his head. He could figure that out later.

What Tony _was_ pretty sure about was that no one was looking this far up for anyone. Emergency response teams were focusing on the people who managed to come down and putting out any fires there might be. Police might catch one or two suspicious people, but as far as he knew, no one was looking for him here either. He was still a high-profile missing person. The people who did know where he was, well, why would they alert local authorities?

They finally saw a bright orange ‘72’ painted on the wall and appropriate door.

Tony was so relieved to see the data center. This high up, and surrounded by weather-proof glass to protect the communications equipment, he could see the clear sky and sun shining brightly.

He didn’t care if HYDRA was in control of this floor too, he could work with this! Even if they were evil masterminds bent on world destruction, geeks thought alike. They did similar work. They needed the same equipment. He immediately rummaged around in a cabinet and found a drawer filled with tools. Someone seemed determined to be well-prepared, because not only was there an extra-long Ethernet cable, there were two screwdriver kits, a multimeter, and … a solid iron pipe wrench?

He weighed it in his hand, curiosity taking over for a moment. It was made of solid cast steel instead of the more modern aluminum, the patina deep and paint long worn off. The adjustment part of it was heavily lubricated and moved easily. It was tempting to take the wrench too, given that he lost the pipe he found in the supply closet, but he sensed that someone would miss it.

Tony placed it down and swiped the screwdriver kit.

“Here, give me one of those,” he said, holding out his hand and grabbing a screwdriver in his other. “I know a thing or two about getting around jammers.”

Captain America handed his earpiece over without a word and Tony went to work with the tiny wires and circuits. Not bad SHIELD, but still. They needed upgrades.

“C—py?” came a garbled voice a few moments later. “Come on Cap!”

Tony handed it back.

“Thank you,” Captain America said gratefully, before giving information to the person on the other side of the com. “Okay. They have a pickup on their way. ETA five minutes.”

“It’ll be tight,” the sniper said. “Lots of recovery time.”

Captain America grimaced. “Yeah. But we’re on the top floor. We have the tactical advantage.”

“We have the high ground,” Tony snickered. Captain America and the sniper blinked at him. “Uh, old movie reference. But it might be really new for you two.”

“Oh,” Captain America said, understanding.

“Tell us about it later,” the sniper added. “It’ll probably be better than the debriefing that we’re going to get.”

Tony grinned. “Sounds great.”

Showing Captain America a pivotal piece of American culture? Yeah, he would fight tooth and nail for the chance to see him react to the Darth Vader Luke Skywalker Connection.

* * *

Seeing no point in staying where they were and increasing the chance of someone finding them, especially when their ride was so close, they headed to the parapet that made up the 73rd floor.

Not ten seconds after they got there, even with a perimeter check by the sniper, there was more gunfire. Glass shattered and crashed. Antennae smoked and crackled where they were hit. Captain America got the heaviest fire, hardly able to do more than shield them. Someone jumped Tony from behind, wrapping their thick arm around his neck. He gasped, struggling, as the sniper had to leap into the worst of the fire and take out the shooters.

Did HYDRA really think this was a good idea? With all of the equipment and glass, this was going to get dangerous and messy.

Where the hell did they even come from? Were they hiding behind a mop?!

Tony jabbed his elbow into the goon’s gut and dropped down low, surging up and disarming him with a few quick moves. It was nothing formal, nothing he learned from a class or even a YouTube video. Just a lot of unfortunate experience.

Knowing better than to throw a loaded gun, Tony held it out in front of him, seconds away from firing a bullet through the man’s skull if he had to. His hand shook a little. His throat burned. He was tired of being out of his depth. He was tired of being caught off guard by bombs and goons popping out of nowhere and having to abandon every plan to get out of here.

When they got out of here—because there was no question that Tony _would_ survive—he was going to sign up for every self-defense class, mixed martial arts, train with Happy every single day, go to the gun range, and do everything else he could possibly think of to make sure he was absolutely competent in situations like this. He would even study Jackie Chan movies so he could have a plethora of someone improvising in a fight to refer to.

He was a genius and he was _not_ going to be done in by something as simple as not being able to punch or know how to dodge.

“Hail—”

Tony slammed the butt of the gun against the man’s temple. He crumbled easily.

“Nice job,” the sniper praised, his garbled voice still odd to Tony’s ears. He and Captain America looked winded now. How many goons were waiting for them on the roof? How long had it taken them to take them all out?

Tony bobbed his head nonchalantly. “Thanks.”

The sniper didn’t take the gun from him. Tony put the safety back on.

* * *

When the SHIELD helicopter finally came, Tony felt his knees go weak.

Finally, this nightmare was over.

“You guys good?” the pilot asked. His voice sounded familiar, but Tony couldn’t place him. He was going through an adrenaline crash now that he was safe.

God, safe. How long had it been since he woke up? An hour or two, tops?

Captain America came over to him and wrapped a shock blanket around his shoulders.

“Mr. Stark? You with us?”

Tony nodded, swallowing, trying to refocus. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said kindly, giving him a smile. “You were amazing out there. Just hang on until we can get to HQ. Then we can get some food in you.”

“Coffee,” he corrected.

“Coffee it is.”

* * *

Tony was grateful that they were in a meeting room and not some sort of interrogation room. The bland beige walls and even blander impressionistic paintings were just what he needed to see after everything that happened in Dallas. He had yet to see the news, but he would eventually. When he could get his heart to calm down and he stopped being so jumpy.

Somehow, Captain America got him that cup of coffee, before going to get cleaned up. The coffee was awful, tepid and bitter, absolutely nothing like Steve’s. But he drank it anyways, holding onto the paper cup like a lifeline.

“Mr. Stark, thank you for waiting. My name is Agent Coulson,” an agent said, coming into the meeting room with a thick file under his arm. He seemed to be completely normal, with a mild smile and brown hair. His suit didn’t look designer and he didn’t even have any glasses to make him stick out either. He could probably disappear in the blink of an eye, only to appear somewhere else, ready to kick some serious ass with a bag of flour or a spork.

“Nice to meet you,” Tony deadpanned, not impressed. Wary, but not impressed.

“Needless to say, we need to keep chatter about HYDRA quiet. We are working on infiltrating their ranks and rooting them out. It’s a slow process, but anything could tip them off and compromise our agents.”

Tony scowled, feeling a little affronted. Where was he going with this? “I’m not going to do something’ll help those snakes.”

Coulson smiled. “Your country appreciates that. Do you know what they wanted with you?”

“They had me work on some algorithms, but I just used it as a chance to hack their systems and get myself out of there,” he said. “I also had JARVIS copy their servers.”

They might have taken his phone, but he doubted they got into it or even noticed that JARVIS was running. Not that they would have seen him even if they did get in. Huh. He wondered why someone didn’t wake him up, demanding his passcode. Did they make a clone? He was going to have to massively scrub it or trash it altogether. He wouldn’t even risk making a backup.

“You were able to decrypt their files?” Agent Coulson asked.

“No,” Tony answered. “That would take too long, but I figured you guys would want intel on their mad, evil schemes. So I have it on a secure server.”

The debriefing that SHIELD insisted upon got tedious rather quickly. Tony told them everything from his end, Captain America told them everything from his end, and they collaborated on the part where they met up. The sniper, whose name he never got, was nowhere to be found. He should have been part of this super boring meeting too.

“You seem really calm about all this,” Captain America commented.

Tony shrugged and focused back on the conversation instead of the mysterious sniper’s whereabouts. “What can I say? When you get kidnapped on a regular basis, it gets kind of boring. I also got some insider info about these guys too.”

“Insider info?”

“Besides them all thinking I was unconscious for about an hour, my father was Howard Stark. You don’t think one of the original members of SHIELD wouldn’t keep records somewhere? Records his insanely curious kid could potentially break into?”

Dear ol’ dad never liked it when he did that, but information learned could never be taken away. When he passed, Tony made sure to read over everything and put it behind better locks. He might not have the experience that SHIELD agents did—let alone Captain Freakin’ America—but he liked to think he wasn’t a damsel in distress either.

Under his cowl, Captain America looked amused.

“Glad you were curious, then.”

Agent Coulson wrote something down, shuffled his papers, and stood. “Well, it seems to me that this was a standard mission, minus the deviation in the extraction plan. Thank you for your time, Mr. Stark, we will be in contact with you again.”

Tony blanched. “What? About what? I don’t need another visit from the men in black, I had enough of that already!”

Agent Coulson had the gall to smile at him before he left.

“Stupid secret agents,” Tony muttered.

Then he realized that he was alone in an interrogation room with Captain America. He tried to get his heart to calm down. He really needed to work on that. If he was seeing a doctor about his heart, his doctor would be prescribing him all sorts of things like meditation and quitting SI. It was alright, he was alright. He could thank his childhood hero for saving him and then walk out of this room any time he wanted to. Nothing was holding him back. Not a thing.

“Thank you, for everything you did,” Captain America said. “It was messier than the usual rescue, but it would have been worse if not for your quick thinking.”

Tony silently gasped. He held his breath so he wouldn’t actually gasp or scream like a fangirl, though, could anyone blame him if he did? Captain America was thanking him. He was thanking him for something he specifically did to help with a mission. Oh, god. Take that, dear ol’ dad. Captain America himself was thanking him for his help, not sneering down at him or thinking he was a lesser man with one glance.

Damn, was he blushing? It felt like it. He was blushing.

“Uh, you’re welcome. I’ll try not to get kidnapped again.”

Captain America frowned. “It wasn’t your fault. HYDRA is a force to be reckoned with, as much as we do fight back against them.”

“Eh, I still could have—”

Captain America shook his head, cutting him off. “I don’t know what people are like these days, since I was asleep and all, but I can say that not a lot of people would have done all you did in that situation. If not for them being so unpredictable, your plan to use the chaos of the fire alarm would have gotten you out. Your actions are commendable.”

Then Captain America stood and held out his hand.

Tony hoped he didn’t scramble to stand up. The handshake was firm and warm. His smile was friendly, though he couldn’t tell too much with his cowl still on and obscuring other aspects of his face. His eyes though … they were definitely smiling too.

“It was great working with you, Mr. Stark.”

“It was great meeting you,” Tony found himself saying.

And honestly?

After years of Captain America being used to emotionally beat him up? After years of thinking his childhood hero would hate him if they ever met? After years of being taught that there would be nothing but disapproval and rejection?

It really was.

* * *

“What do I have to do? Make it a law for you not to be kidnapped? I will single-handedly lobby Congress if I have to!” Pepper exclaimed when he finally made it back to his apartment. “I swear, I am so sick of—oh thank god, you don’t have any flowers!”

Tony chuckled a little. He should have bought flowers just to keep good on his Twitter threats. There were so many people wondering what he had done to Pepper now.

“Rhodey has already been informed,” Pepper continued. “He can’t make it back yet; he is deep in an op now. But he wants to punch some people’s faces in too.”

“Thank you,” Tony said quietly.

Pepper blinked. “What?”

“I don’t say it often enough. Thank you … for everything.”

Her eyes started to water and her smile was just as wobbly as the tears threatening to spill over. “Oh, Tony. You don’t need to thank me.”

He shook his head. In the car ride back home, his thoughts had gone in a million directions, dozens of them conflicting. A therapist would have a field day with him.

Or maybe need a few drinks.

“Yeah, I do. Everything you, Rhodey, Happy, and Bruce do for me—I can’t begin to repay you. I know I haven’t been the best … friend, boss, person … I stumble and fall more than anything else. So, thank you is gonna have to be a start.”

Pepper just let out a half-laugh, half-sob and hugged him. “It’s a wonderful start.”

* * *

Bruce and Rhodey shared the same opinion.

Sure, they had seen him at his worst, but he was getting better. Not just because he wanted to clean up his public image. Not because he wanted to prove total strangers wrong.

But because he wanted to prove to the people who stuck by him, who loved him, that they were _right_.

* * *

Late that night, he woke up with a gasp.

The arc reactor glowed blue, as always, making creepy shadows around his room.

Agent Coulson said they were trying to root HYDRA out.

But out of _what_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: following the ‘write what you know’ rule can be really fun, because you can insert all sorts of random things into the most unusual places, and it makes for a really interesting story.
> 
> Or inside jokes that only you might understand.
> 
> Such as that pipe wrench. It totally would be missed. It belonged to my great-grandfather. I would hunt someone down for that wrench. Even if it helped save the world.
> 
> I also happen have two screwdriver kits and an extra-long Ethernet cable in my closet because I am my family’s IT person. The Ethernet cable once saved my butt when the WiFi at my college was down and I had to do an online math test. The IT person there said it shouldn’t have worked because of security protocols on their landline, but through that cable, I got internet access. I am never, ever getting rid of that cable, just like I am never getting rid of the landline that is in my room, even though we have WiFi now.
> 
> And I have never been to the Bank of America Plaza in Dallas, but we have driven past that thing a few times, and man does it reflect the sun’s light like no one’s business. Ouch.

**Author's Note:**

> See what I mean by this running away from me?
> 
> I lost sleep over this. Not like “oh god why is this story plaguing me” but more along the lines of “wow I really write awesome stuff at 2:30 in the morning wait where is my keyboard”. Thankfully, this did not happen too often or I was able to grab my phone before it was lost.
> 
> Thanks again to the people who inspired me, gave me suggestions, answered questions, and more. Thank you, MCU Stony Discord server! You guys are amazing! Also, shameless plug: check out my bookmarks, there are tons of amazing writers all over this site. You can’t go wrong with any of them. I hope some of you noticed a reference I made in there to one of my favorite series :)
> 
> Thank you again for reading! More fun tidbits and stuff will be added to the author notes as we go along. You should see my Google search history for this fic. It's weird.


End file.
